


Pray Not For Peace

by AHelplessKitten



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Parahumans Series - Wildbow, 小林さんちのメイドラゴン | Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon | Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
Genre: Asexual Character, CYOA, Crack, DnD cross is just for the power, F/F, F/M, Gen, MLP and Dragon Maid are pitstops, Mood Swings, Or Is It?, People seem to think its funny, SI, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:54:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 39,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25399474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHelplessKitten/pseuds/AHelplessKitten
Summary: A CYOA SI inserted in Dinah's brainmeats during the Leviathan fight. Cross posted from Questionable Questing, it has been described as "So funny I almost accidentally killed myself!" Be sure you're aware of your surroundings or this story could kill again!
Relationships: Amy Dallon/OC, Brian Laborn Grue/Pinkie Pie, Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver/Lisa Wilbourn | Tattletale
Comments: 13
Kudos: 56





	1. And Suddenly, The World.

Waking was... cacophonous is a good word for it. The world seemed to vibrate and scream and whisper and push all at once. Ripples in a pond or maybe moonbeams refracting off of one another or an endless sea of shifting sands. All at once and none at all.

My insides were no better. I felt like a furnace had opened in my chest and impossibly bright light was trickling down from the crown of my head and both were circling through channels in my flesh. Have you ever laid awake in bed and listened to your heart, only to eventually start feeling your blood rush through your veins? That, but in synesthesic riots of deafening color and sickly heat.

I hurt.

For a long while, I laid there trying to make sense of what was happening within me, all but dead to the world. The sensations never faded but... Well, you'd be surprised at what you can get used to with enough time. As luck would have it, I had plenty of time.

As my breath steadied and I formed thoughts more complex than 'Ow', I began to take stock of my surroundings. Uniformly grey walls were interrupted only by a stainless steel toilet and a solid looking door with no visible hinges or handle. I was laid out on a simple, hard cot with thin sheets. All of it was lit by a single recessed light in the ceiling that cast the room with a sterile glow. Everything about the room said 'Prison Cell'. What the fuck did I do last night to get my dumb ass thrown in prison?

I looked down at my body. I seemed to be firmly chained to the bed. Also, I looked to be an emaciated 12 year old girl.

What the fuck did I do last night?

Putting aside the apparent memory blackout, I pulled experimentally on my bindings. The chains and manacles held with the expected strength of steel but, more interestingly, I felt the fire/light/swell of blood swirl and move beneath my skin with the movement. With a bit more effort, I mentally coaxed the feeling closer to surface and pulled again. The metal of the chains and their anchors bent with the force of my movement.

Now, I could be here for a good reason. Maybe I hurt someone. Maybe I was in danger of hurting myself. Maybe if I waited, someone would come free me and explain what was happening.

"Nah. Fuck that noise."

With a flex of my tiny girl muscles, I pulled on my chains and let the ocean of light flow through me.

The effect was dramatic and instantaneous. Metal chain links screamed as they were shattered and caught fire. No, wait, I caught fire. Yes, I was covered in a softly glowing sheen of blue flames. Naturally, I handled the situation with grace and poise.

"Dicks! Why the fuck am I on fire?" Grace and poise. That was when the soldiers burst into the cell. Because of course they did.

"Get down on your knees!"

"I'm not your mother last night!"

Damn you, Brain! Now is not the time for Team Four Star references!

The lead soldier grabbed at the collar of my shabby shirt and raised an extendable baton into the air, ready to beat me like an unwanted stepchild. The thing about being child sized, though? It puts you directly at crotch level for most adult men. The flames that wreathed me shone brighter as I landed a swift uppercut directly between his legs. For a moment, I thought I missed when I felt no resistance but the plume of gore that erupted from the man's front proved otherwise.

There was a silent second as the blood splashed against the ceiling and coated the lone light, casting a red tint over everything in the room. We all stared as the man fell backwards with a curious expression on his face, like he was watching this happen to someone else. By the time he started to try and weakly pull the ruined remains of his organs back into his body, I remembered that there were more soldiers in the small room. I hadn't been prepared for the level of violence caused by my apparent super strength but... Well, I've always been pretty good at moralizing quickly.

I was not the aggressor, so this was self defense. A more complex introspection could come later when I'm not about to get my ass beat.

I vaulted over the dying man with more athleticism than I had ever known and landed feet first on the shocked trooper behind him. Ribs cracked beneath my feet as he and his coworker toppled backwards and out the door into the bleak hall beyond. To his credit, after we landed, he managed to get a combat knife out of a sheathe on his leg and made an accurate stab towards my kidney in a single motion. Unfortunately for him, some new instinct in me responded faster and my hand caught his wrist before he could hurt me.

My mind took a moment to catch up with my body, but when it did I felt the already agitated bonfire of my soul kick into a murderous frenzy. It felt like something inside of me was exploding and I whited out for just a second.

'Oh.' I thought as I came back to the molten hall. 'Something in me did explode. Then my outsides exploded too.'

"Neat. I guess I explode now." I said weakly from atop my charred, fleshy perch. Lights began flashing and a piercing tone played over the embedded speakers. "Okay. Time to leave before I have to self defense 'splode again."

I had two choices with no real indicators to sway me so I picked a direction and started jogging. I got about 50 feet before I felt more than heard a group of people coming from the direction I had picked. I promptly made a quick pivot and started outright running the other direction.

'Maybe I can get out of here without having to self defense all these people to death.'

\-------

"Have I killed enough people that accusing me starts to sound too ridiculous to be plausible?"

None of the dead or dying members of the third ambush squad I had encountered answered me. The assholes.

By this point I had discovered, quite unwillingly, that I was immune to both bullets and lasers. They just kind of slipped off my flaming aura. Without the mortal danger, I was getting... frustrated with my inability to find an exit. The sporadic ambushes of heavily armed mercenaries had become less threatening and more annoying, in some detached, hysterical way.

Still, I didn't want to be here any longer than I had to, if only to find a shower and some food, so I made to jog on.

In the space between thoughts, I whirled around and caught the bullet flying towards my back. Then I remembered that I really didn't have to. The fine gentleman who shot at me had clutched his pistol with his remaining hand and focused solely on me with hateful eyes. I dropped the bullet and walked over to him. He shot me until his pistol clicked empty and then weakly threw the pistol itself at me. Reaching down, I removed the corpse pinning him to the ground and manhandled him til he was propped up against the wall in a sitting position.

"Hi." I said. He spat at my face but the spittle evaporated before it reached me. "Imma be blunt. Tell me how to get out of here. I'll find a way if I have to climb over the corpses of everyone here but I would rather not do that."

He glared defiantly.

"Look. If you don't tell me, I'm going to get lost and self defend my way through this whole damn place. Probably twice." I let out a heavy sigh. "Please. There's been enough blood."

"...Third right, second left, stairwell on the right. Feel free to throw yourself down it." I patted him on the non-severed shoulder.

"Thanks. Good luck not bleeding out."

"Shove it up your ass, cunt."

"Fine, I take it back. Hope you shit your pants when you die, goat fucker."

\-----

Say what you will about Goat Fucker's attitude, he gives good directions. Five minutes later and I was fighting my way through the last barricade. Shimmering energy pooled in my hand like liquid light and I pushed it out towards the asshole who had hit me with a rocket launcher. A hand width sized beam of light seared its way through the intervening space and explosively struck Rocket Boy and his two friends. I pulled myself out of the crumbling hole in the cement wall I had been blasted into and was immediately peppered with a hail of bullets and lasers.

Willing myself to burn brighter, I dashed across the lobby and grabbed a hold of the fucking annoying automated gun emplacement and heaved. The gun battery tore away from the wall with a satisfying shriek and I hurled it at the blast door. My blood was singing with the need to fight, to rip and tear, but I tried to keep sight of my goal. The giant ass doors dented outwards but held until my follow up charge slammed into them, battering them open.

Glorious, fresh rain fell on driving winds and immediately soaked my front and lasers scoured my back. Resisting the urge for a parting shot, I broke into a dead sprint into the gloom and cold of the surrounding city. Wind and water whipped about my hair as I leaped and slid down the street. Lightning and thunder echoed the thrumming in my soul and...

On a sudden premonition, I skidded to a halt just before a street intersection. I made a note to always listen to that feeling when a moment later the space I would been was crushed by a great, grey-green thing falling. It turned its four baleful eyes and fixed me with its lopsided glare.

I could feel it there, like some sort of heavy hole in the world that wanted me, everyone dead. It was so much more than its 40 foot stature suggested.

"What the fresh fuck is-"

A wall of water struck me full in the face.


	2. Dance as Rome Burns

The torrent swept me up and sent me flying back down street ass over tea kettle. With an exertion of will and magic blue stuff that was probably going to give me cancer because nothing this convenient has no downsides, I managed to right myself and disperse the wave.

I had maybe half a second to land and catch my breath before a certain betentacled asswipe plowed into me and planted me deep into the asphalt of the street. Hentai has lied to me! This was entirely the wrong type of plowing! Naturally, this wasn't nearly enough murder for him so he pushed what felt like all of his weight on top of me and began to shed water like someone hadn't explained what made a slobbery dog cute to him and he really wanted me to know he was happy to see me.

In all my concussed lucidity, I grabbed hold of the claw keeping me pinned and pushed all of my 'Nope' into it. Sure, there is likely a more elegant turn of phrase for describing the feeling of conceptually rejecting the monster above me and enforcing my will over the parts of reality that he used to occupy. I was sure I would think about it when I could breathe. Pale blue fire pulsed upwards, climbing and devouring the things arm. Something about the fires must have freaked it out because the dark shape stopped pressing down and I was free to drag myself out of the impromptu pond, hacking and coughing up what felt like gallons of water from my lungs.

"Wanted... a shower. Not a bath."

The worst part about drowning isn't how painful it is, it's the way it makes it more difficult to complain. It's one thing to hurt or kill someone, but to deny their ability to bitch at you about it? Clearly I have found an utter monster. I have also lost said monster, which was worrying.

I pulled myself up, soaking and miserable, with nothing to do but keep walking like before, albeit with less enthusiasm.

\-----

I chose to follow the wake of destruction left by the tentacle monster, whose name shall henceforth be Susan, on the logic that he had already destroyed shit in this general direction and was thus less likely to double back to redestroy it. As I walked through the valley of wrecked shit, I had to admit that Susan did not fuck around. Streets were flooded up to my chest in some areas and detritus of all stripes floated by. I was pretty sure I'd been in the middle of hurricanes that caused less damage.

To be fair to Susan though, the city seemed like kind of a shit hole even without the flood waters. Everything was... old. And shabby. Like everyone who lived here was just... waiting. Waiting to die, to be saved, for someone or something else to change. I didn't know want gave me that impression, exactly. How does one infer suicidal complacency from crumbling stonework or gang tags covering walls? The further I walked, the deeper the impression wormed its way into my mind, leading me to an inexplicable conclusion.

"This place fucking blows."

Judgement thus passed, I turned from the depressing cityscape and began to walk away. Only to stop abruptly as my weird ass senses rippled down my back and settled into a pit in my stomach. My head whipped back and scanned the abandoned buildings, looking for the source of the bad juju. Taking a deep breath, I let the flames inside me out to skate along the surface of my skin.

There.

An old antique shop with the sign long gone. The kind of store that makes you wonder how the fuck they stay afloat when they never seem to have any people in them. Susan had left the owner a present in the form of a nearby Micky D's roof through their front window. If I was less of a Millennial shit bag, I would have made some shitty comment about big chains crushing small independents, but really, fuck that entitled claptrap. You aren't owed a flourishing business! Instead, in the spirit of free capitalism, I rushed into the store with a sense of dread.

Once in the building, I did my best to calm down and try to find the source of my distress by reaching out with my feelings. Then I realized how stupid that was and simply called out.

"Anyone here? I'm here to help!"

"Here! Please, God, help! Upstairs!" A weak voice called out.

Wasting no time, I vaulted over wreckage of the Clown's empire and the contents of a dozen estate sales and made my way up the stairs. For some stupid ass reason, the fucking door to the upstairs apartment was locked, but a quick application of super strength ended that little problem and the door. Ignoring the old people smell, the cat pee smell, the religious iconography wallpapering the place and the bags of garbage that should have been thrown away two decades ago, I made my way to the part of the apartment with the roof caved in. A pretty Hispanic woman in nurse's scrubs was desperately trying to lift a collapsed timber off of a teenage boy.

Without waiting for an explanation, I took position next to and calmly spoke.

"I'm going to lift. I need you to drag him out. On three. One. Two. Three!" I lifted with more ease than seemed fair but the wreckage moved and the nurse dragged the boy out.

"You're gonna be okay, baby. Just... Just stay with me." She cradled his head against her chest... While he was still bleeding out from his crushed legs.

"Pressure on the wound, bitch! You are a goddamn nurse! You know this!" Stricken, she stared at me and continued to not fucking move. "Fine! I'll do it myself."

I tore off my shitty bloodstained shirt and pressed it against the wound with the thought that we could worry about transmission vectors later, like every other little inconvenience and moral quandary tonight. However, I froze as I touched the wound and something in me sparked, some artificial instinct that came from the same place as the fuck you fires. A trickle of power flowed through me like cold water in the middle of July, demanding words to give them shape.

"By the power of Me, get the fuck up!"

Golden light flooded our vision for a moment and cleared to reveal unmarred flesh. The boy, who had remained lucid the entire time, looked up at me and spoke in a small voice filled with awe.

"Are you an angel?"

"Christ, kid. One girl loses her shirt in front of you and you suddenly find God? Keep it in your now stylishly ripped pants." No reaction. "Tough crowd. Why the fuck are you here? Everywhere else is abandoned."

"We had warning." The woman who I assumed was a mother said. I mean, she could have just been a really attached cougar but people tend to look at you funny if you make that assertion. "We thought we had time to get my mother, but..."

She swallowed thickly.

"Well, that was fucking stupid. Running dick first into a Kaiju fight." Despair seemed to blanket the woman as she clutched her son/love interest. "But I'm kinda the goddess of knowing something is a terrible decision but doing it anyway sooo... You're alright in my book."

That... wasn't quite what I meant to saaaaa-hello! The both of them were looking at me, believing me. I could feel it like pinpricks in my heart as that trickle from before flowed between the three of us. They gasped and ooh'd and ahh'd and I was not dealing with this shit.

"No. Fuck off and fuck you. Go get somewhere safe, dick waffles. I'm out." I walked over to the crumbled wall of the apartment and readied myself to jump out into the rain.

"Where are you going?"

Alright. Time for a badass one liner to leave them with.

"I'm going to go punch a flaming tentacle monster named Susan in the face until I feel better."

Eh. Close enough.


	3. Obligatory Leviathan Fighttm

My 'Shit Be Happening' sense was being frustratingly vague. It seemed to require that I pay attention to it but not think too hard about it at the same time. Insert joke about girlfriends here. After a bit of trial and error, I wound up just sorta following where my feet took me on auto-pilot. I would like to say that my instincts led me to my natural home, a hole in the wall used book store that hosted weekly board game nights but we all know that I ended up at the largest source of human misery in the city. That it also happened to be a public high school seemed like a trite, if accurate joke.

Susan towered over a destroyed sportsball stadium like the world's angriest soccer mom when her special little superstar got benched even though the kid wasn't even really paying attention and had wandered off to pick the flowers off of weeds. Beneath the roaring, tortured metaphor was a collection of drenched and broken bodies, all in outlandish costumes or armor. A few masked weirdos ran around Susan's feet and attacked sporadically with strange powers and equipment. Desperation and futility colored their every action as they tried their damnedest to hurt the damn thing and not get squished for their troubles. Also worth noting, Susan was still on fucking fire. No worse for wear, just casually burning like it didn't want ninjas catching it.

"Sit on my face, I've been dropped into a comic book."

One of those shitty deconstructionist ones too, going by all the dead capes and my lack of shirt. No wonder the city feels like mimetic Gotham city. More than that, those are obviously street level jobbers fighting a high nation or low cosmic level threat, meaning that this is a crossover event. A shitty, cash grabbing crisis wannabe where dozens of d-listers die to arbitrarily raise the stakes. Just look at the defenders! Spear guy with the roman helmet will never carry a title on his own and bug girl is obviously an obscure, edgy villain meant to be used once and then forgotten! She probably doesn't even get to do bad bug puns because it's not edgy enough. Luckily for these obviously doomed chumps, I have the power of anime and Jesus on my side.

'...Note to self, that joke is too cringe-y, even for the inside of my own head. For the sake of the inevitable hot psychic who probably has red hair, never use it again.'

Following my bullshit power instincts, I focused my power into my hands. Because God is obviously a chunni fuckstick, the fires of my soul coalesced into a giant flaming cross/spear thing. And because I now knew the type of story I've been dropped into, I made a dozen more because the monster never goes down to the first 'Final Attack'. The spears, fuck you I refuse to acknowledge religious iconography, hovered behind me as I leaped to the top of the stadium's floodlight rig to assess.

Spear guy and bug girl were, surprisingly, still alive but looked about 115% done with all that marketable battle damage. Shame it was on characters that no one was going to buy figures of until some writer decided to reboot them later with some twist on their personalities or upgrade to their powers. A guy in police blue power armor with what looked like a halberd and a giant blade shoggoth were keeping Susan entertained. I said entertained because I had seen it's speed and strength up close and it was toying with them. Hell, it had probably been toying with me when it put me in the ground. It brought to mind a particularly foul tempered cat I had once known and how it would stop what it was doing to kill random small creatures that crossed it's path. It honestly kind of made me like Susan a little bit but then I've always had a weakness for cats.

I launched myself off of the tower, accidentally shattering the light fixture and sending it careening off into the night behind me. Wind and rain whipped into face as I streaked (Ha! I'm still half naked!) towards the monster tearing the arms off of the guy in apparently shitty power armor. Susan did not seem to much care for giving me a hug and tried to pawn it off on the shoggoth, grabbing it and bodily swinging the discount eldritch horror into my path. It was then I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that whoever made my power was a fan of DBZ because I pulled forth my burning power and used it to propel myself into a quick course correction to dodge the impromptu flail and crash spear first into Susan's chest, impaling it.

Clearly, I am the Legendary Super Saiyan God Super Legend Saiyan God Saiyan Super. Of Legend.

Then I got bitch slapped.

I flew about a hundred feet before I took control of my flight and rocketed back towards the monster, copyright be damned. I grabbed a hold of another spear and took a baseball swing as I passed Susan by. My suspicions about Susan sandbagging were confirmed as it used fucking faster than sight super speed to dodge out of the way and hydrokinesis to leave behind a water clone. To someone whose brain isn't processing information a stupid DBZ levels, it would have looked like I cut the asshole in half, only for the clone to dissolve or crash down on the attacker.

I'll admit it. That is some epic level trolling. Like, the whole of the internet wishes it could troll half as hard collectively.

Fortunately, I have bullshit, esoteric senses that no one understands, not even me.

Susan materialized behind me and made a comparatively slow swipe. I felt him coming and dodged low, taking the opportunity to shove my spear through his thigh in the hopes of hampering his mobility. Naturally, Susan completely ignore the pillar of radiant energy pinning him to the ground and punted me into the air. I had half expected some manner of bullshit, so I recovered before I rose beyond Susan's standing height, grabbed onto his misshapen head and redirected the motion into the most awkward over the shoulder throw in the history of martial arts. Susan was sent tumbling straight upwards and, in what I suspected was closer to it's full speed, made a lightning quick slash at me with it's tail.

So those are tails, not tentacles. How disappointing.

Instead of dodging, I sent a concussive blast of energy into it's center of mass. The force of the explosion pushed it even higher, causing the tail swipe to miss by less than an inch. Still, a red welt appeared on my torso and the sharp crack of the sound barrier being broken sounded out a moment later. With the speed Susan normally moves at, whipping it's tail like that was especially deadly.

As Susan tumbled away from my blast, a thin panel of water formed above it. With a surreal grace, Susan turned its haphazard tumbling into an upside down crouched landing and pushed off the plane at its greatest speed yet. I dodged to the right as it sped by me but it grabbed onto a stationary bar of water and redirected its assault again. Rather than let it keep the initiative, I pushed myself to my newfound limit and crashed into it, sending us both to the ground. In a strange parody of our first meeting, we cratered the ground with our landing and I drove all ten remaining spears into Susan, pinning it to the ground. Those baleful eyes still glowed a sickly green, so I gathered as much power as I could and unloaded it into a pointblank explosion of holy wrath.

The night turned to day for a moment.

The light faded and Susan was charred, missing a few layers of flesh and still on fire, but largely unharmed.

Across the field, the metal shoggoth hit the ground 40 feet from where he was thrown at the start of our fight.

Susan reached up slowly and grabbed me in one skeletal, burning hand and I was too spent to move out of the way. My world jerked as the unkillable monster casually lifted itself off of the spears and slammed me to the ground. The holes in its body were already closing because why not give it a healing factor. I was pretty sure at that point that it doesn't actually need its body intact but fuck us anyways. The storm clouds that had cleared a hole above us after my explosion were slowly closing back together. Water sluiced off of the silent thing above me, intent on finishing the job it started earlier.

Then bug girl stabbed Susan in the back like a good little edgelord and NotASpartan let loose a massive lightning blast from his spear.

Bless you, d-listers. I promise to buy your action figures!

Of course, Susan didn't even react. It just swatted bug girl with its tail and waterbended at discount Leonidas. Waterbent? Whatever, it was the thought that counts. Or, as the case may be, the distraction.

Inside my mind, in my soul, a trigger pulled and all four of us vanished.


	4. Fantasia

Did my mind expand or did I just slot into a greater ‘me’?

All around me and within me danced knowledge. The whole of human endeavor, from the first organized threat assessment on the dangers of the world made by men in caves to the final acceptance of a child watching the whole of the universe go cold with entropy, was dancing like stars through my body. Everything that was and everything that was not and everything that could not be. It was so vast, so humbling, that I could not speak, move or even think in that moment.

"Well. That happened." I said simply, weakly.

Then the moment passed.

I was flat on my back with cold marble beneath me and Susan's ominous figure still pressing down on me from above. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books (and me) surrounded us and stretched out beyond sight. Soft, golden light suffused the room from no visible source. Looking around, I could see little nooks and hideaways with various styles of comfortable... chairs? Couches? Places to set down and not move for longer than is healthy. With the exception of the various pained noises and hacking coughs from the d-listers, the whole place was silent and still.

'I should probably go deal with that.'

I slipped gently out of Susan's grip and floated over to bug girl. Both halves of her. A quick poke of power stabilized her and gave me time to work. My will flexed, making her parts float together and her blood and organs gently flow back into her body. Complex reality manipulation to effect simple telekinesis. I could do better. Divine power, no use denying it anymore, shed from my form and pooled around us like swirling sand kicked up by the wind. I... persuaded her constituent parts to come back together and be whole. Motes of power filled in the blank spaces and copied their neighboring cells. I made her Whole.

Physically, at least. Show me someone totally mentally whole and I'll ask you to give that infant back to its parents.

Setting down the obvious and unconscious villain (or maybe Liefeldian hero? Nah. Not enough pouches or guns and she looks like she actually eats a damn sandwich.), I went to help the hero. Honestly, he didn't really need it. Just a quick evacuation of his lungs and he was fine. Hacking and coughing but fine.

"Levi... Leviathan!" He managed to choke out.

Who? Oh. What a weird name for a bug controller. If you wanted a demon name I would think that you could find one more closely associated with insects. Maybe it was a common power and all the good names were taken. They were street level jobbers after all.

"Don't worry, you're safe here. I'm in complete control here. Like, literally complete."

"Where? Where are we?"

"This is..." I struggled with the words at first. "This is me. Or maybe I am it. It's kinda super unclear.Point is, think of it like a personal pocket dimension controlled by my sense of self mixed with the conceptual manifestation of humanity's knowledge, past, present and future. Mr. Very Big and Very Wet over there can't do anything 'cause... I think it's just an infinite or, rather, a nearly infinite spiraling fractal of increasingly dense crystal. It's basically a really, really big computer with only one input/output port in the form of its hydrokenesis but nothing here actually qualifies as water. 'Cause, again, everything here is me and I am everything which is how I know this in the first place. It has literally no sensory input so it kinda just doesn't do anything." There. That explained everything.

"I... I don't follow." Or not. Okay, small words then.

"You are standing in my soul. I am a giant nerd, so my soul is a library. The big scary monster can't hurt you here. You can leave now. The door is over there."

"What?" For the love of the Elder Gods.

"What ain't no country I ever heard of! They speak English in What?"

"Are you quoting Pulp Fiction? Aren't you a little... young to see that movie?" Dammit. At least let me shoot you in the shoulder for the sake of a reference!

"Aren't you a little old to be inside me?" He cringed.

"Please don't say that."

"Please don't stay here."

"But Leviathan-" I cut him off.

"I'll look after the walking biblical plague." I began pushing him bodily towards the door between my realm and the real world and telekenetically floated a semi-random book to us as we went. "Thanks for all your help. Here's a reward. It's call the... Sunflower Manual. It will help you be less shit, Captain Dadbod."

"Captain... Dadbod?"

"Yup. Also, lay off the salt. You're headed towards hypertension. Bye." I physically pushed him through the door. Without opening it. He passed through it like it wasn't there but the expectation of getting slammed into a door must have been jarring. Or, a-jarring! Hah! I should never say that one aloud.

What was I doing? Right. Giant monster. Which may or may not be a robot and may or may not be naturally occurring. I floated over to Susan.

"I'll give you this; you are one strange mother fucker." I told the mass of mostly baryonic matter.

To the trained eye, it was clear to see that I was examining its composition and structure to figure out what the fuck I was seeing. To the untrained eye, I was staring at Susan really intensely for... about five minutes before I got bored, gave up and wandered off. I moved Leviathan to one of the things I thought was call a chase or something before wandering into the stacks. She would be fine and the door was right there when she woke up. Just to make sure, I tore a page out of The Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind and scribbled an explanation with rearranged ink. Then I set the rest of that book on fire, confident that nothing of value had been lost.

\-------

Sometime later, having read Ranma 1/2, All-Star Superman, an unnamed treatise on how to make shit explode with my mind, an alternate version of Twilight where it's all played as a horror novel, Death Troopers, the Necronomicon and the last 6 chapters of Firestarter from a universe where King actually knows how end a damn story, I felt that old enemy of every reader that would rather ignore their bitch ass body and acquire words: Hunger. I sniffed and recoiled. I also needed a shower, apparently. I let my mind drift from my mortal senses and took stock of my realm. No kitchen or bathroom.

Damn it. Why was my soul not fully stocked with all the amenities I might need, allowing me completely shut myself off from society? 2 out of 5 stars, infinite books, no room service.

And why was Leviathan still asleep? I read like, 4 novels or something. How do comics factor into novel to time spent ratios? Whatever. It was time to go wake the lazy bitch up.

I began to walk across my library towards the couch I left her on, got bored and decided to fly instead. I had the vague feeling that I was going to get fat if I flew everywhere but dismissed that as gravity having codependency issues and developing telepathic abilities for the sole purpose of getting me to come back to it. Fortunately, I'm on to gravity's plans and started to ignore body image issues and ingrained fat shaming with the same ease that I told gravity to go fuck itself with.

"Hey. Leviathan. Wake up." She didn't. "I know your still alive. Get your mathematically perfect butt off my couch and get a job! No wait. Wrong rant. Seriously though, the fucks wrong with you. should have been up hours agooooo-oh."

Yeah. That stabilization spell? Technically a stasis spell. My bad. I released it with a novel twist of will and she began to groggily stir. Her movements turned tense when she seemed to notice something. Or maybe she just remembered the giant monster tearing her in half with a casual flick of its tail. Eh. Who really cares?

"What? Where?" Yeah, I'm not eloquent when I wake up either.

"You're inside of me." I said with as deadpan an expression as I could manage.

"Dinah?" I blinked. Really? What a disappointing reaction.

"Sure, a diner is fine. I just want some kind of food. You probably do too, seeing as you just came out of a totally planned power induced healing coma that I totally did not forget about and leave you in for hours more than needed." Smooth as silk. I think she bought it. "Think they might all be closed down on account of giant monster attack. Probably won't have to fly very far to find an open one though. Also, something, something usually you buy a girl dinner first then get inside her. To hungry for spontaneous jokes. Also also, I need a shower first. You're pretty rank too."

"No, what? Where's Leviathan?"

"Ugh. If you're one of those villains that talks in the third person then I'm afraid we can't be friends. Crisis event is over, monster was a giant, multi-dimensional crystal construct with a couple glaring weaknesses. I'm a Big Damn Hero. Yay. Do you have a place I can get a shower?" I looked down at myself briefly. "And some pants?"

"You... How did you get away from Coil?"

"Who the fuck is... You know what? Nope. Pants first, cartoon amnesia discussion over pancakes."

With that, I picked her up in a princess carry and flew through the door.


	5. Naturalized Citizen

"You don't remember anything? At all?" Leviathan sounded incredulous. We had had to go pretty far afield to find an open restaurant but we eventually found a little Chinese place run by what might have been the most unflappable little old woman in existence. She didn't even blink when a flaming girl and a bloodstained super villain asked for table. She also didn't ask what we wanted to eat, just went to the back and came out five minutes later with a couple plates piled with food and set them down in front of us then went back to watching some sitcom on an old portable tv.

I hastily chewed my mouthful of fried noodles and answered.

"Nope. I think they're called episodic memories? Full on soap opera amnesia. Which is weird for a lot of reasons." I took a bite of egg roll covered in some red chili sauce. I chewed and swallowed quickly. "I'm pretty sure that retrograde amnesia is waaaay rarer than tv and movies make it seem. The most common form of amnesia is damage to the short term memory like when someone gets blackout drunk or gets a concussion and loses time. The fact that I still have facts like that still in my brain is also suspicious. I have opinions on shit that I must have read at some point so it's not like I'm a blank slate or anything. Way, way too opinionated for that. This is the kind of thing that makes you think 'Enemy Action'. And all of that is complicated by the fact that my powers come with certain bits of information packaged in. My bet is a hostile telepath."

"Telepaths don't exist. At least, none have been recorded except the Simurgh and we've never had two Endbringers attack at the same time." She shuddered a little at the thought of two of the hyper destructive monsters attacking at the same time. Or maybe it was at the way I shoved the remainder of my egg roll in my mouth and then poured some of the sauce in after it. I was hungry, sue me.

"If I were a telepath, I would consider it my civic duty to other telepaths to go around and make people think that we don't exist."

"You're also a bundle thoughts no one should have in the shape of a twelve year old girl."

"So sassy!" She tensed up, just a little. "I like it. Shame me harder, sempai."

She relaxed minutely. "At least we know you spent too much time on the internet before you lost your memories."

"I mean, doesn't everyone?"

"No."

"So cold."

"Eat your damn noodles."

"Yes, sempai~!"

We ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Well, I was comfortable.

"Case 53s show up in random places missing all their episodic memories." Leviathan offered up between bites of chicken.

"Sounds like a hostile telepath to me. What are their distinguishing features?"

"Heavy mutations, no memories and a specific tattoo somewhere on their body. Looks like an upside down omega or a weird 'U'."

"Any chance this 'Coil' fucker is the one behind it?" I hummed thoughtfully. "Also, insert joke about you trying to get me naked to 'Look for a tattoo' here. Too lazy to actually make the effort."

"Virtually zero. His power is based on something like probability control if Tattletale can be trusted. Which is somewhere around 50/50 at this point." She added darkly. "Also Case 53s have been a thing for a lot longer than Coil's been active and pop up all around the world."

"Okay. I can't read the little asterisk, explanation box thing. You're gonna have to tell me who Tattletale is." She gave me an odd look from underneath the bandanna she was using in place of her cracked mask.

"My teammate. Ex-teammate, I guess."

"Bad brea-"

Our conversation halted as the door to the restaurant swung open with a loud jingle of the bells tied to it. Captain Dadbod and three other capes, two women and one man, filed into the room and made a beeline for our table.

"Mind if we join you, ladies?" The man who spoke was movie star handsome even with the wide domino mask covering his eyes. The skin tight blue and white spandex didn't hurt either.

"Sure." I said, ignoring Leviathan's sudden tenseness. "Pull up a chair."

Without prompting, the elderly woman running the shop pushed another table against ours and rearranged the chairs.

"Thanks Halmuhni." I said. She nodded and left for the back. Wait, how did I know she was Korean?

Dadbod and Handsome But Probably Gay Given How Fabulous His Hair Was sat down beside us but Ms. Back In Black with a rook symbol on her chest stayed standing. I barely noticed next to the final member of our guests. She was something like 7 feet tall and covered in shiny, opaque force fields about a fingers width long but was otherwise completely naked. Her musculature was that hard sleekness seen in swimmers and runners. She also had a bigass fucking horn on her forehead. I'll admit, I stared a bit.

"Regular here?" The amazonian unicorn sex goddess asked.

"Nope. Never been here before." I shrugged. "That I remember anyways. So, names? Mine's Dinah apparently but I'm not sure how attached I am to that."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Dinah. My name is Legend." Damn, it takes a special kind of charisma to say 'Sorry for your loss.' and sound like you mean it. Legend had it. He pointed to Captain Dadbod. "You already know Dauntless, this is Narwhal and the sourpuss not sitting with us is Alexandria."

"Dammit!"

"Pardon?" Legend asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I was already half settled on Alexandria as a superperson name. I have a magic library and everything! But no! We have to have a one Steve limit!" Legend and Narwhal chuckled at my outburst and Dauntless gave an uneasy smile but Miss Steals Names Preemptively just stood there with a perpetual scowl on her face.

"It would be a little confusing, you have to admit." Legend offered. "But we are rather interested in this library of yours."

"Are you interested in the literally infinite store of knowledge, the fact that it functions as my oversoul making me mostly omnipotent within it or in the giant monster I stored there?"

There was a brief pause.

"Yes?" My new definition of the pinnacle of womanhood asked.

"Yeah, that's fair. Also, food."

All three instinctively leaned back as the old woman placed two unasked for plates in front of the male supers.

"Do I not get a plate?" Narwhal asked.

The old woman, bless her ancient heart, simply pointed at a sign that said 'No shirt, No shoes, No service' and shuffled back to her tv.

"Enough." Barked out Grumpy McStealsnames. "What did you do with Leviathan!"

I blinked. "Well, after I pulled us all into my little pocket dimension, she had come down with a bad case of getting torn in half by a giant monster, so I... Long explanation short, I willed her two halves back together and her body knew better than to not do what I wanted. Then I let her sleep for a couple hours and now we're eating Chinese. Thanks again, Halmuhni!"

The old woman gave a short wave without looking. The rest of the table gave me a series of strange looks.

"Do you think my name is Leviathan?" The girl in question asked.

"...Well, not when you ask like that. And definitely not when you're facepalming like that. My internal continuity starts from when I woke up this morning. Cut me some slack."

"What kind of a twelve year old uses words like internal continuity?" Dauntless asked.

"What kind of superhero puts himself inside a little girl?" I fired back.

"Please, please stop saying that."

"But Mr. Dauntless, you're the only man to have ever been inside me!" A nasty little thought hit me at that moment. "Unless one of those mercenaries decided to rape me when I was unconscious. Or before I lost my memory. They do say that repressing memories can be a response to trauma. I am suddenly a lot less conflicted about having ki... Defended myself in a thorough manner."

Ah! Nothing brings about awkward silence like the creeping fear that comes with the realization that a young girl had been left alone with a large number of criminals for an extended period of time.

"Be that as it may, it is very important that we know the status of the Endbringer you fought." Alexandria said softly. "The entire city is in danger as long as it remains active."

I leaned back in my chair.

"Alright. The fuck huge monster with ludicrous hydrokinesis is currently inside my personal dimension. I have a certain amount of omniscience within its borders so I can tell you that it is currently completely inert. Also, I named it Susan. Grandiose names beget fear and respect but silly or common names rob a thing of its majesty, dark or otherwise, so I'm going to continue to refer to it as such. Like, white supremacists wouldn't still have such a hard on for Hitler if they had to say 'Heil Shitgobbler'." I took a drink of my off brand cola. "Susan is a construct. It's... difficult to understand the fucking thing 'cause it's a near infinite spiraling fractal but I can sort of get an idea about how it works. It interacts with the world primarily through its ability to sense and control water. Without that, it's completely blind, def and dumb. Emphasis on the 'dumb'. Susan is also dense enough that traditional physics start to break down around it. Like quantum mechanics but in reverse? Or maybe like a black hole without all the gravity fuckery. If you're trying to kill the thing, I hope one of you is planet cracking strong or better because you're not denting Susan otherwise."

A quiet despair fell over the table at my final judgement as they realized the futility of fighting so far above their weight class. Ugh. This is one of those settings where they face cosmic threats but no one has the required power to do anything about it. How... Disappointing.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't get your panties in a bunch, you nerds. I've got a library with literally infinite stores of knowledge. I'll figure something out for solving your kaiju problem." I reassured them but a strange mood overtook me. "I am warning you right now though. I'm not solving all your problems. I'll give you the means to deal with the shit that the world shoves on your plate but it's up to humanity to actually use them."

"We've fought these monsters for longer than you've been alive." Alexandria bristled as she challenged my attitude.

"That says a whole lot about you and very little about me, miss." I quietly answered, power beginning to thrum in my voice. "There are consequences for accepting powers. Responsibilities, complications, moral dilemmas writ large and adversaries drawn to strength for as many reasons as there are stars in the sky. To wish for a Hero is to wish for the circumstances and tribulations that make the Hero. If I help you further, there will be a balance to the scales. Can you afford to buy that trouble? Will you sacrifice your known world for the hope of a better one, despite the fear of the worst?"

"Yes!"/"Absolutely." Not!Leviathan and Legend answered immediately. They looked at one another with surprise before the elder hero chuckled and made a sweeping gesture, ceding the initiative to her. She swallowed thickly as she realized everyone was focused on her.

"It's... not like we have much of a choice, do we? Everything is falling apart. Endbringers and gangs to entrenched to be moved and wandering bands of murderers. Ever since Scion disappeared... Someone has to do something."

Alexandria tilted her head. "Altruistic words for a villain."

"I... didn't mean to. I just..."

She had been doing so well, too. Can't have that heroic spirit crushed, can we? I reached into my soul and grasped Susan's core and pulled. The essentials were all there. The speed, the water sense and control and the durability without any of the programming. Light bent around the crystalline orb in a way that I imagined made it difficult to view with human eyes. Hmmm... Orbs of power are all well and good, but are a little boring. I pulled at its shape and it began to stretch like a piece of melted taffy. I molded and pulled at it till it formed a wickedly pointed, twisted spear made of shining crystal. I stood up and placed the butt of the spear to her chest and willed it to sink into her soul. Not!Leviathan's back arched as I thrust into... No! Bad brain! Stop it! After the haft was halfway in her, her soul began to pull on its own, drinking in the power of the spear.

With a flash of light, the core disappeared into the only being that could now be rightfully called Leviathan.


	6. Mania

Why did I do that?

Leviathan writhed in... not pain. Sensory overload? She hunched over with her head in her hands and convulsed like she was dry heaving.

What did I just do? How did I do it?

The heroes jumped back from the table into tense battle poses. Light gathered in Legend's hands, Dauntless drew is spear and shield, Narwhal surrounded herself with tiny, pointed force fields and Alexandria rose into the air. They waited in tense silence to gauge my next move.

The Pact has been kept.

I saw then, what I had done. Like an infant clamping down on a teat for the first time, I had made a deal with Leviathan. I claimed her as my own.

As my Daughter.

A breathy giggle clawed its way up my throat as I gazed in wonder at my dear, lovely child. I willed myself to her and the table between us ceased being in the way. I raised my hand to caress her face and her struggles slowed at my touch.

"What. Did you. Do to me?" She asked with labored breaths.

"I've given you what you wanted. What your heart wanted. You wished to be a hero, to bear burdens for others, to be the pillar of strength. You asked for the power to change the world, for better or worse. So you have asked, so have I granted. The Pact is finished and you are named as my Daughter, The Queen of Tides and Depths."

"I... didn't..." She tried to protest weakly.

"You did." I rebutted. "You didn't know and I didn't know but when has a child reaching into an open flame ever resulted in anything but a burn?"

She tried to argue but strength was quickly leaving her. The poor dear, being reborn must be so tiring. Yes, I could see her body's cellular structures rearranging. Love, pure and parental, swelled in my heart as I viewed all of her. She was going to be such a wonderful hero!

"Time for you to rest, sweetheart." I whispered to her. As though she had been waiting for permission, her eyes fell closed and her body went limp against mine. Gently, I pulled her into my soul. I would have followed after but some nagging urge kept me in the living world.

"Dinah, what did you do?" Alexandria's voice was harsh. I don't think she was trying to be but I got the impression that she couldn't help it.

"Didn't I explain this already?" I grumped at her. "We made a Pact. An agreement. Think of it as... she picked up the call to adventure and has left behind the normal world."

"Yeah, but can she go home again?" Narwhal asked dangerously. I knew there was a reason I liked her beyond the rockin' tits.

"Of course! Campbell isn't really the end all be all but he had a number of good insights. Try not to torture the metaphor too much."

"That explains what you did but not what you gave her!" Alexandria nearly shouted. "I read the manual you gave to Dauntless. The first step is to castrate yourself."

"Wait, what!?" Dauntless interrupted in alarm. We all ignored him.

"We won't let another Teacher run around giving people powers at terrible cost." I chuckled.

"I took actual Leviathan's core, distilled it into its conceptual parts and infused it into her soul. She'll have all of Susan's speed, durability, water control and sheer strength on top of her normal powers. She earned those through suffering. Who am I to take that partnership away?"

"You know?" Alexandria seemed taken aback.

"Probably not. Most of my power is guided by instinct and want. Whatever you think I know is probably just fragments of omniscience leaking out of my mouth on accident."

"The origin of powers. What do you know?"

"The little dimensional tunnels bored into your heads?" Dauntless and Narwhal seemed to miss a beat. "Interesting. So they make you forget?"

"Forget what?" Narwhal asked, like I could just explain it to her again. Legend chimed in before I could tease her.

"Everyone who doesn't know forgets when they hear it. It's universal. Your senses must let you bypass the effect, like Miss Militia."

"Hmm... Nope! A nice try though." I consoled him.

"Then how do you remember it?" Alexandria asked, clearly frustrated and on the edge of simply attacking me to be done with it.

"I'm not a parahuman." I said clearly. "My powers don't come from a 5d space slug latching onto my brain so I don't have those effects embedded in them."

"Then where do they come from?"

"From my divinity. I am the Goddess of Heroes." I giggled a bit as power thrummed in my throat as I spoke. Don't look at me like that, it tickled. "I also have some sub domains with knowledge, slaughter and... its a little hard to describe, but intuitive creativity? Something like that. I'm sure I'll think of a better word for it."

"We have a Master effect!" Dauntless shouted. "I keep losing time as she speaks!"

"We know! Shut up!" Alexandria yelled back.

"What are you planning to do with Skitter?" Legend sternly asked, ignoring the byplay.

"Who do you think were the first heroes?" I asked in return.

"Story book heroes and legends."

"Kings, lords and the children of gods. Arthur, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Maui, and on and on."

"You want her to rule? To conquer?" Legend asked in disbelief.

"No." I denied. "I want her to lead. To inspire. To rise above her circumstances and leave a red hot mark on history for future generations to look back on in awe. Those ancient heroes were not great because they conquered, they were great because they rallied against impossible odds and won. She wished for that. She wished to rise above petty squabbles and unite people in the name of righteousness."

"And you gave that power to a villain? To a petty bank robber?" Alexandria asked.

"Of course! I made a Pact, didn't I?" Ah! That's what was bothering me! "Speaking of which-"

"Legend, run!" The annoying harpy yelled.

A credit to their teamwork, Legend didn't hesitate. He transformed it a mass of light and flew out of the front window faster than the human eye could see, shattering it in the process. I laughed deeply. The next moment, Alexandria bull rushed me, hoping to catch me off guard. Thankfully, it was a simple matter to reach out to the sympathetic forces of the universe and convince her movement to stop. She hung there for a moment, suspended mid tackle above the ground, before she fell to the ground with an unceremonious belly flop.

I couldn't help it, I laughed harder.

Dauntless stabbed his spear in my direction, letting loose a massive column of lightning that I let hit and flow around my aura. Thousands of terrifyingly sharp force fields shot towards me like the bastard child of a rail-gun and a sawed off shotgun. I dance through them like raindrops, exulting in the ease of movement. I stepped too closely to where Alexandria was lying and the veteran heroine leaped up grab me by the waist.

"Oh no! A bear hug! My only weakness! Nyooooo."

Narwhal immediately fired off another volley but I held out my hand and arrested its momentum. Halt in the name of the laws of physics! Another lightning bolt uselessly deflected off of my aura. Alexandria rose to her feet and used her newfound leverage to lift me over her head and fucking German sulpexed me through one of the tables. So that's how you want to play it. I landed on my shoulders and rolled to my feet. With a burst of flaming blue energy, I jetted forward and caught Alexandria as she rose with a lariat across the chest. The impact itself didn't hurt her but it did send her flying into Dauntless who raised his shield and erected a barrier. The heroine bounced off of the force bubble and ricocheted off. I amped up my speed for a moment placing myself into her flight path and grabbing her around the waist. I flung her around til she was upside down. I paused for a moment and then slammed her head into the ground so hard that she sank into the floor up to her chest.

"And what a beautiful lariat off the turnbuckle into a devastating pile driver! The crowd goes wild!" I called out in my best announcer voice with my hands cupped around my mouth. Then my arm fell off. Blood splattered against the force field that Narwhal had created inside my body. "Huh. That's a thing. So's this."

With a flex of divine power, I willed my body to wholeness. Muscle, bone and sinew exploded from my stump and coalesced into a new arm.

"You have got to be fucking with me!" Narwhal exclaimed. Probably shouldn't give her the chance to do that again.

In a flash I was behind her. A simple touch and a flex of power disrupted her flow of consciousness. I caught her as she fell and gently laid her down. Alexandria made another flying leap with her fist ready but I chose to simply freeze her in the air this time. Dauntless, paragon of manliness that he was, vanished in a sphere of light. It was probably the correct call, but kind of boring to be honest.

"You won't get away with this!" Alexandria cliche'd at me.

"Which in particular?"

"Mastering Legend!"

"Oh. My, no. He's already given up his claim. Choosing not to decide is still a choice. His blessing, his Pact won't go to waste."

"What do you mean."

"I mean... Think of it as a physical thing breaking apart and... No, that doesn't quite work. We'll have to go without a metaphor on this one. When he ran from this, from me, the energy of the Pa-" I coughed as the power stuck in my throat. "The agreement, had to go somewhere. Without him to direct it, without the wish in his heart to give it form, it scattered. In all honesty, Legend gave up his wish and gave it to the world. It'll have its ups and downs, but I, for one, am looking forward to watching how people respond to it."

"What did it do?" I looked at her, frozen in the air and radiating a curious mix of fear and anger.

"In the dark places of the world, in the places where man isn't watching, monsters will be born. Beasts made of suffering and power. Slay them and their power becomes yours. But be wary, the beasts range widely in strength and abilities and they grow stronger where misery holds dominion."

I took a deep breath and exhaled the power I was holding. My will swept across the ruined restaurant, mending the damage our fight had caused.

"Good luck. Truly." I left into my library.

\-----

Within my soul, I found a lake. Deep beneath its surface was Leviathan, my daughter. Of course she would have a place in my soul. Why would I ever think otherwise? I slipped into the warm water and drifted placidly towards her sleeping form. I embraced her, marveling at the softness of her flesh, which could withstand all the weapons mankind had ever crafted. I fell asleep in arms with the strength to shatter continents.


	7. Mini Interlude As I Fuck Around With The PHO Generator

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♦Topic: Leviathan GONE!?!?!?!  
In: Boards ► News ► Events ► America ► Brockton Bay

Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)  
Posted on May 15, 2011:

Reports are sketchy as hell right now, coming from Hookwolf of all people but corroborated by Armsmaster's helmet cam that Leviathan might be gone. Here's what we know. EDIT: The helmet cam has been released to the public! [LINK]

The fight progessed as is unfortunately normal right up until Leviathan stopped to fight his pursuers in the middle of the Winslow High football stadium. Among the people fighting were Armsmaster, Dauntless, Kaiser, Hookwolf, Skitter, Holo-skull, Peaches the Sad clown, Journeyman and a few others. Unfortunately, Leviathan whittled down the brave defenders until only Armsmaster, Dauntless, Hookwolf and Skitter remained.

Let's take a moment of silence for the departed and the very real human costs of these attacks.

Armsmaster was wounded heavily just before the incedent and was rendered insentiate. Then the cavalry arrived.

An unknown cape appeared, covered in flames and trailing giant fucking energy crosses and attacked Leviathan. They fought for a bit, in mid air apparently, before the Endbringer got the upper hand and pinned the new cape to the ground. Dauntless and Skitter moved to assist but as Leviathan retaliated against them, they all disappeared. Boom, Endbringer fight over.

More news as we get it will be posted here

Edit: Dauntless has shown back up and confirmed that a new cape has trapped Leviathan in a pocket dimension. Leviathan is not dead but hopefully this new cape can keep him contained.

Edit 2: The new cape is being called Pandora by the PRT. For all of you digenerates jumping to the obvious joke, she is also around the age of 12. Keep it classy guys.

(Showing Page 1 of 87)

► JimminyCricketBat  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
Is this real life?

► TheBurninator  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
OR IS THIS JUST FANTASY?

► SparklestheUnicorn  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
Is it too early to party in the streets?

► Peanuts!  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
Wait until the streets arent flooded.

► shoobedoo  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
yes

► CrossBearer  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
I'll believe the fuckers dead when I see his evicerated corpse. Action movie rules, people.

► XxVoid CowboyxX  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE!

► tRiPpY  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
Little late there buddy.

► FernGully001  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
Also in kinda poor taste

► XxVoid CowboyxX  
Replied on May 15, 2011:  
NO YOU GUYS I AM LITERALLY TRAPPED IN A LANDSLIDE LEVIATHAN KNOCKED OVER MY PLACE IM STUCK IN THE BASEMENT AT 2400 WOODRIDGE PLEASE SEND HELP JUST GOT SIGNAL

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 85 , 86, 87


	8. (Actual) Interlude 1. An Oblong Round Table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: Isn't it fun when you know something the characters don't?

"Can we finally get some goddamn support now, or do you still think we have this handled?"

"Director Piggot, please at least wait for the conference to begin before making demands."

Emily took a deep breath and did not shoot Director Armstrong. Everyone else felt very clever and wry by privately considering that a small victory.

"If we're done with the outbursts?" The word 'Children' was left unspoken by the Chief Director. "Good. There's a fair bit here to cover and we all have a great deal to do."

"I suppose that's my cue. Let's start with what we know for sure." Alexandria began tiredly. "To rehash the Leviathan fight, he turned on one of the groups trying to pin him in and predictably wiped most of them out. Unfortunately, that's fairly common. He has, or maybe had, a penchant for feigning weakness to lure in the overconfident. Nothing so definite as to suggest a pattern, but a known tactic all the same. A new cape arrived and immediately engaged directly. We have Armsmaster's hard work to thank for the fact that we know what happened next. His frankly ludicrous helmet camera recorded the fight with an auto tracker. Here's the unedited footage."

She gestured at the intern manning the projector and a video played. It was an unintelligible mess of explosions and blurs culminating in a ground shaking plume of dust. Skitter and Dauntless charged into the cloud, only for all of it, and them, to disappear.

"We mostly showed that for a frame of reference. Here's the same footage slowed down to something the human brain can actually process."

The intern dutifully played the same clip. The unreal fidelity of the camera resolved the flashes of light into Leviathan and a young girl. Each explosion became a punch or a tackle. Whirling colors became spears of energy and torrents of water intersecting.

"We're going with 'Pandora' for the moment, by the way." Costa-Brown added.

"Well, she certainly opened at the very least, a can of worms." Tagg offered.

"More pertinently, she's seen here pushing Leviathan to speeds we've never seen from him before outside of the water. Conservative estimates put her somewhere around Brute 8, Mover 9 and Thinker 2 from this exchange alone."

"Pardon, Thinker 2?" Armstrong asked.

"High speed information processing. They are both moving and making conscious decisions faster than the human mind should be capable of processing."

"Ah. Thank you."

"Although it's no longer relevant, the high speed regeneration seen... Here, corroborates with the villainess Tattletale's assertion that the Endbringers have been... Sandbagging." The heroine was to professional to spit the final word out, but her distaste was clear.

"How trustworthy is the 'Tattletale'?" Tagg asked as he leaned back in his chair.

"Half as far as you can throw her in most circumstances. Psych puts her as needing to assert her own cleverness though, so unfortunately trustworthy here. What better ego stroke than to rub this in all our faces?" Piggot immediately responded.

"Hmph. Kids." Tagg derided.

"Further," Alexandria interjected, "Her teammate is the villain seen charging alongside Dauntless. Villains, but committed to at least this fight. More on her later."

"I believe the next part is your meeting with her?"

"Not quite, Director. You've all read the dossier on Dauntless' report on the pocket dimension but what hasn't made it to a report yet is the contents of the book she gave him. It seems to be a manual on cultivating and using an internal energy written in fourth century Chinese that requires castration to begin. The floor of the powers it seems to offer are at least mid tier Brute and the ceiling is hyperbolic 'invincibility'. If not for the source of the book, it would have been completely dismissed as a cruel spirited prank. As is, preliminary testing has carbon dated the book as nearly sixteen centuries old. We have language experts combing over it, but much of the book is a strange cross between instructive and poetic."

"Why are we even entertaining this? Castration? What could be worth that?" Tagg exclaimed.

"The book claims that anyone can learn and use the methods in the book." Costa-Brown chimed in. "I personally know a few pre-op soldiers who would be willing to at least test it if Panacea or a similar healer is on call. If our theories about Pandora are correct..."

"Perhaps we should continue." The Chief nodded to Armstrong's suggestion and motioned for Alexandria to continue.

"The confrontation at the Golden Wok. We've had our Thinkers go over the conversation with a fine tooth comb, but most are still drained after the Leviathan fight. You will all receive updates on that as they come in. As is, we can conclude a few things. It's either a certainty that she told the truth in regards to Leviathan and what she gave to Skitter or she has yet another power that can spoof every Thinker that's pointed at her. We are operating under the assumption that she told the truth."

"She can really just give people an Endbringer's powers?" The intern in the back said, seemingly involuntarily. He shrank in on himself as they all turned towards the interruption.

"She has once. We have no reason to believe that she can't do it a second time."

"And she gives it to a petty thief?" Tagg looked like he had swallowed the world's vilest object.

"Maybe." Piggot interrupted. "Armsmaster had pertinent information that he'd been sitting on. Take it with a bag of salt, but he says that Skitter was attempting to go undercover to discover who was backing the Undersiders. Naturally, neither of them told anyone else. It was only a foolproof plan in that it is proof they are both fools. Make of that what you will. Armsmaster will be receiving an official reprimand and I'll be looking into how much I can get away with in regards to punishing him further."

"We'll make an attempt to at least talk to her but remind absolutely everyone how fast this can go south. If we can sway her to our side, fantastic. If she so much as steals candy from a baby, consider her immediately under a kill order. Take no chances. We can't afford a being with the powers of Leviathan that isn't bound to a schedule. Society would not survive. At the same time, try not to push her to violence. If you wanted an easy job, you're in the wrong field."

The assembled leaders nodded at the Chief Director's words. They all knew the stakes of this game.

"Do we know anything about her?" Armstong asked?

"Almost nothing. Strictly street level with a couple of assisted wins. We're fairly certain she took down Lung the first time with some kind of sucker punch or alpha strike given the amount of insect venom in his system but beyond that..." Piggot trailed off.

"One of our less reliable assets went over the bank heist footage and started swearing up and down that she was Amy Dallon's soulmate. They then showed the footage to their partner who came to the conclusion that Tattletale was her true love. They got into a fist fight. Twice." Alexandria did not smile.

"Eye and Beacon?" Costa-Brown asked.

"Yes."

"Moving on."

"Indeed. Another note is that Pandora seemed markedly stronger at the Golden Wok than when she fought Leviathan. The helmet cam footage shows her tiring after 6 seconds of concentrated effort. At the Wok, she showed no strain and immediately regenerated her wounds. She also overpowered me with minimal effort, despite having struggled with Leviathan. This suggests a flat increase in strength after a 'success'. Unfortunately, her one display of super speed was too fast for the low fidelity security camera in the restaurant, making it difficult to compare. This brings us to what we believe her true, or root power is."

Alexandria paused for a moment.

"She described what she did to Skitter and Legend as 'Pacts' that fulfilled 'Wishes'. We believe she makes a deal with a subject and is empowered by the act. Given that she has been positively ID'd as the kidnapping victim Dinah Alcott and her casual mentioning of being raped by soldiers, we believe that she triggered while captive. She then used her power to escape. Somewhere between these two points, she lost her memories. Our psychologists believe she is in a very delicate transitional period and could go in just about any direction from here, mentally."

"So she's unstable?"

"Every freshly triggered cape is. The real problem is the apparently volatile nature of her powers. When she empowered Skitter, she seemed confused then awed then giddy. Like she didn't know what she was doing until she was done. If she isn't in control of her powers, but rather, the other way around..."

"If she's a Trump version of Labyrinth, you mean?" Piggot asked.

"Refresh us. Labyrinth?" Armstrong gently prompted.

"Shaker 12. Her power overwrites reality around her but interferes with her ability to function. She's basically has low functioning Autism as a side effect of being nearly omnipotent when she can control it. The only consolation is that she gets more and more detached from reality as she sinks deeper into her power."

"How do we know all this?"

"She used to be contained in the same asylum as Burnscar. They broke out at the same time, separately with unknown help. Labyrinth is nowhere near as violent, so capturing her is on the furthest of back burners at the moment."

Tagg opened his mouth to offer some form of recrimination at letting a Shaker 12 run around untended but Alexandria preempted him.

"There are parallels. Pandora, however, seems far more active."

"That brings us to the final item. Legend's... 'Wish'?"

"Yes. That." Alexandria frowned. "We're already getting reports in from all over North America. Strange, unnatural creatures have been sighted in areas that usually see light to no regular traffic. The smallest are... less than threatening. They tend to be described as either curious, cute or stupid. A few even seem friendly, allowing cautious humans to handle them. However, the larger the creatures, the more aggressive they become, especially if they're found near places where strong negative emotions are fostered such as schools, graveyards and historical battlegrounds. Just like Pandora said."

"So... What. She's Nilbog too?" Thunder played across Piggot's face.

"Not quite. They don't replicate for one. For another, they have... effects, when they die."

"Don't be vague. There's no room for that with a threat like this." Tagg grumped. Alexandria sighed.

"Of the people who have come into conflict with the creatures, some have fought with and killed them. In every instance, they have all reported a rush of energy or vitality. Given what Pandora said, it's entirely possible that fighting and killing the constructs can slowly grant superpowers."

\--------

Current PRT Threat rating for Pandora: Trump 12, Mover 10(9), Brute 9, Master 5,Thinker 4, Blaster 4. Do Not Engage.


	9. Which One Will Save Your Soul?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stephen gripped his backpack to his chest in terror. It had happened so suddenly that he had simply watched in shock. Everyone did. The man with the knife wasn't moving anymore but the man who had been attacked was slumped over, clutching at the wound.

"Help...Please..." The wounded man gasped.

None of the adults moved. Why wasn't anyone helping him?

The man with the knife was still slumped against the wall. If someone moved to help the victim, what happens if the attacker wakes up again? They might die.

That... That made sense. But...

If no one helps the victim, what happens to him? He will die.

'He needs help. I just need to move to him. If I can get him away...' Stephen did not move.

The man with the knife stirred but remained down. Stephen took one step back but then took one forward. Then another. And another and another. Like a spell over his heart had been broken, he rushed down the train faster and faster. He reached the man and nearly tripped over him in his haste.

"We gotta move man!"

Stephen grabbed the man beneath his armpits and pulled him away from his attacker, quietly thanking Coach for busting his ass in practice so often. Then the knife wielding asshole lurched upward, looked at Stephen and lunged. Stephen lost his grip as the attacker tackled them both. With the attacker and victim both on top of him, Stephen couldn't get away. The first slash described a line of fiery pain across Stephen's forearm and the second was aimed for his neck. His hands moved almost without his consent and he caught the swing by the attacker's wrist.

There was a knife at his throat. His arms burned with effort of trying to hold back the blade at suck an awkward angle. A dying man was swiftly bleeding out on top of him. No one was helping.

'Please. I need help!' He prayed.

Sure, why not?

For a moment, the world fell away. There was only the World within him. A great, flaming wheel turned and roiled, driving him to greater heights. Serenity lay behind him, a placid lake of infinite counterbalances. Above him, the light of God shone with gentle fervor. A choice, for you alone.

Stephen had always wanted to be the best.

The Wheel turned faster and faster, spiraling outwards and intensifying from scarlet to orange to blue. Its core tried to push to white, but Stephen knew that this was his limit.

For now.

When Stephen opened his eyes, the flames danced within them.

A push and the attacker was thrown bodily from atop him. Stephen slid out from under the victim and laid him down. He looked down at the wound. He didn't know what to do, how to save him.

There.

Stephen placed a hand over the man's heart.

Push, gently.

The fire seemed to seep from his hand and into the man, who gasped. The wound gushed blood in a vivid red spray, but began to close. Stephen looked over to where the attacker laid in a crumpled heap with his legs bent at awkward angles. Cold and drained, Stephen passed out with a single thought crossing his mind.

'Why not?'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scene changed again and again.

'You don't get to touch her! Never again!'

I swam from attack to tragedy to disaster, seeing the worst of humanity.

'Hey friend. You're not alone. Why don't you come back from the edge and we'll talk about it.'

And the best.

'Don't die. Don't die! No! You don't get to die here!'

Sometimes, they needed my help.

'Tell them. You need to get it off your chest. If... If the worst happens, I'm here for you.'

Sometimes it just took a word.

'Avoid that beam, its load bearing! Quick! Before the fires spread!'

Sometimes I just wat-

Thwack!

What the-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"-Fuck just hit me?" I asked. "Oh."

Leviathan was thrashing around with a panicked look on her face.

"Yo! Klutz! It's not actually water! You can breathe and move freely!"

Leviathan slowed and looked at me. I rolled my eyes then made a show of taking a giant breath.

Ahh~! Soul stuff!

She slowly let out the breath she was holding and took a small gasp, like that would save her from drowning at the depth we were at. Crisis thus solved, I stretched the stiffness out of my back.

"Why are you naked?" Leviathan asked.

I blinked and looked down. Sure enough, all my clothes were gone and I had no clue as to where.

"Better question is why aren't you naked?" Deflector shields engaged!

"You don't know, do you?" Torpedo hit off the aft, Captain!

"Well. That was a nice nap." Hard to port, Mr. Cummings!

"Where are we?" We appear to have lost them, Sir.

"This is your portion of the library. Although, I guess we should call it the lagoon."

"Why?"

"My mind tends to default to alliteration so 'Library and lagoon'. Lake would work too, but lagoon is a more fun word to say."

"No!" She shook her head. "Why am I here? Why do I have a part of... of me, in all this... you? Why did you do this to me? What do you want!?"

"I want you to be a hero. I want you to be happy." I answered evenly. As she grew louder, I seemed to grow calmer, more focused.

"Bullshit! No one wants that! No one wants me! This is... This is a trick or, or, or a plot. I... I..." Her face was red and tears were streaming down her face. She twisted and flailed. "I need to go."

"You're having a panic att-"

"I need to go! Let me out! Let me out!"

"Will yourself away. You can leave anytime."

With that, she disappeared.

"Well, that could have gone better."

I sighed and frowned. Around me, the shadows in the water danced in riotous chaos, reflecting my daughter's mind. She needed time to calm down. I floated upwards into the cool, dry air of the library and the soft light. Above me, the empty shell of Susan loomed, cold and dead. Having skimmed so many minds in my dreams, the husk's hulking visage held far more meaning to me now.

"Hmm... You would look better as a series of blue haired maids. Japan shall have its ultimate revenge. Everything shall be cute girls! So mote it be!"

My smile faltered a bit as I glanced back to the lagoon. Smothering the worry, I summoned a Manual of Golem creation and began to read. When I finished with that, I summoned a book on constructing video cameras. Five books, a dozen spells and some careful telekinesis later, I had a functioning digital video camera. It floated a few feet from me and switched on. I was particularly proud of the hover and auto-shoot features.

"Hey everybody! This is a tutorial video on how to construct golems. Today we'll be honoring Leviathan's victim's by desecrating its remains and putting them to better use. My name is apparently Dinah, and I'll be your goddess of knowledge tonight." I gave a hearty wave and then stopped. "Why did I want to say 'Welcome to Jackass'? Questions for later."

For the next few hours, I carved apart the killer construct and shaped the pieces into female forms, explaining the steps I was taking to prepare the materials for use and how Leviathan's crystal differed from more mundane materials.

"If you're using stone, the grain of the cut will affect the durability of the golem on the simple basis of physics but has no real bearing on the mystical components of the process. If you're using flesh as a material, be sure to ask the local law enforcement the best way to cut up corpses. Nothing bad will happen, I promise. If you're using wood... I just realized I've been naked for this entire video. Oh well. If you're using wood, not only does the cut matter, but the age and significance of the tree matter as well..."

Seven hours later, I had 13 golems of varying shapes and sizes.

"And there you have it. In honor of Kyushu, be sure debate over which repurposed murder construct would make the best waifu. I'm leaning toward blue hair with small breasts myself but don't let me influence you! Fat bottom girls make the rockin' world go round, after all!" I slapped the eight foot tall golem with curly pink hair on the bottom. "Good night!"

I turned off the camera and my smile faded. I looked to my new golems. They did not look back, staring straight ahead. I turned to look at the lagoon. Shadows swirled beneath the surface like a million swarms of angry insects.

I turned away and summoned a book on how to build computers.


	10. And All The Lilies Did Turn Black

"Remember, an artificial intelligence is a lot like a really smart child and requires the same love and attention. You aren't just making a doll, you're making a person. Agate here is going to need something like 3 to 5 years before enough chaos and entropy has been introduced to her axiomatic personality matrix for her to develop a personality but this time is crucially important. If you can't devote the time needed to raise your golem, don't make it. Again, same advice as with children. Personally, I'm only going to be activating two of these beauties at a time to keep myself from being stretched too thin."

I finished touching up the lightform runes and collapsed the display back into the gem on Agate's back without activating it.

"That concludes 'Advanced Golemcraft: Part 17'. This will be the last of these videos. There is certainly more to this particular art, but I'll leave that for you mortals to discover. Can't hand you everything on a silver platter after all. Plus I haven't left my library in something like a week. There's enjoying a quiet night at home, then there's staying inside until the walls start talking to you."

"But we love you, Goddess!"

"Shut up, South Wall! I still haven't forgiven you for the damn water balloons!" I cleared my throat. "Right, signing off."

The camera switched off and immediately began uploading the video to the internet. I sighed. Skitter still wasn't back. Did she not know she could come back or did she just not want to be around me? I should respect her wishes... I'll just... Go to Brockton Bay to pick up some supplies.

"But you can magic up any supplies you want." The third couch cushion sneered. The prick.

"I don't have to explain myself to you! You're only decorative anyways!" I clasped my hands over my mouth, aghast at what I had said in anger. "I should... I should go."

"Yeah, maybe you should." Fuzzy blanket growled. She was always so sensitive about that kind of thing.

I willed myself to the door or the door to me, whichever you prefer is likely the correct summation of what happened. I hesitated for a moment, then passed through it and into the real world. I looked out over the skyline of the coastal city. The burning skyline.

"It's always fucking something with you, isn't it. Fucking... Fine." I groused as I floated into the air and began following my senses to the place where I was needed most.

\--------------------------------------

"God, this town is fucking depressing." The street? Flooded. The buildings? Crumbling, ruined, on fire or some combination there of. The people? Holed up and hiding. "I am really not in the mood for this."

A girl ran across the street in front of me while clutching her hand tightly to her chest. Well, better than nothing.

"Social activity!" I cried as I flew after her. I pulled up beside her and leveled out to her speed. "Come here often?"

"What the fuck?" The girl exclaimed as she tried to throw herself to the side. It was hilarious.

"Seriously though, where's the fire?" I paused. "You know, other than the buildings. Look, I'm really bad at serious. What's wrong?"

"Run! We have to run! The Siberian is after me. If she sees you helping me she'll-" The girl's eyes widened and her face froze in horror.

Behind me was a roiling mass of murderous intent. Its claw made to swipe across the back of my neck. I casually robbed it of motion and turned to face my attacker.

"Sup. So is this a super person thing or are you just a furry?" The striped woman strained against the conceptual stop, trying to decapitate me. Thing was, she was actually making progress. Interesting. Then she gave up and moved her other hand to try and disembowel me. Naturally, I stopped her again. She lunged forward with sharpened teeth bared. Stopped.

"Look, I get it. In all ways but physical, you are a tiger. I'm not kink shaming, just not con-" Tiger lady disappeared and my senses screamed at me to move. I ducked as a clawed hand sped through the space my head had been. I stopped her completely. "Consenting. Seriously," She disappeared and reappeared. I dodged and stopped her. "What's the safe-" Pop, dodge, stop. "Word here?"

Newspaper switched targets with the next... Teleport? Existential reorientation? What the actual fuck was happening here? Anyways, she aimed for the mousy girl and I had to yank her towards me and out of the path of the attack. I caught her by the hands and pulled her into a ballroom twirl. I pulled her along in an acrobatic series of dodges, healing her ruined hand at the same time. I think I might have slightly annoyed Hobbs a bit. My first clue was her increasingly frantic attempts to kill us. My second was the furious rictus of hate her face had settled into.

"Okay. I've had enough." I teleported myself and Jerry to my library and away from Tom.

"I'll be right back.I have to go lick a pussy real quick. Don't touch anything. Or yourself. Who am I kidding, do whatever the fuck you want, just clean up after yourself."

"What."

I popped back into existence a few feet away from Cheezburgr. She immediately charged, intent on maiming me. Fear the ultimate technique mastered by every Soulsbourne player! Mashing circle! In between impossible 3d movements and precognitive trolling, I began to chant.

Divine magic is weird when you're a goddess. The spell I cast asked for my goddess' knowledge to tell me something. Except I am my own source of divine energy. Effectively, I asked me what was this bullshit about, and I answered. It was dumb and recursive, but it worked. So I guess it wasn't dumb then?

"Hi me. Go over that way. There's a van that looks like it should have free candy in it. We love candy! Especially when it's free!"

Nope. Still pretty dumb.

I juked away from the serial killer cat (Tautology!) and made a dash for the completely ordinary van that clearly hid nothing. I fired off an energy blast at the van and Felix popped out of existence. The blast hit the target directly and exploded in a satisfying fireball. I felt the life force inside the van remain static, but asked anyways.

"Did I get her?" What do you want from me? It's tradition.

A man stepped out of the fire and began to run away. I outpaced him easily and cut him off, only to gasp in surprise. The tiger woman floated around the old man, clearly granting him some sort of invincibility.

"Is this a mother fucking JoJo's reference?" I squealed giddily. The man charged and punched. I dodged, but the enemy stand emerged from his body at an awkward angle to try and catch me off guard. I mean, it didn't work, but I gave him points for creative thinking and looking super neat while doing it.

"Say 'Za, Warudo!'" I urged. He tried to kill me again. "Okay, I'll settle for a 'Wryyyyyy?'!"

He swiped again.

"Come on, man. Meet me halfway here! It's super hard to keep up this kind of energy by myself."

"Why won't you die!?" He screamed like a fucking mook. I frowned.

"Okay. I'm bored now." I wasn't even trying that hard to dodge anymore, he just flailed about. It was too easy.

"Stay fucking still and die, cunt!"

"Fine."

I let his hand hit my chest. His power scythed through my protective aura and flesh with no resistance. Some kind of absolute cutting force or dimensional displacement. He reached in with his other hand and pulled my rib cage apart, exposing my organs. He grabbed my heart, pulling it out and to his mouth. Savagely, he bit and tore with his teeth like what an asshole thinks a wild animal looks like.

"Are you done yet?" He stopped with his stupid little act and stared at me with traces of my heart dribbling down his chin. What a moron. "Because I'm done."

His hand lashed out towards my throat but I grabbed him by the wrist. Then I uppercutted him into the sun.

Well, I hit him with enough force that he could easily break earth orbit and in the general direction of the sun. Lots of things could happen between here and there, however. He could lose consciousness and become vulnerable again. He could hit the moon or some other celestial body on his way there. I'm still telling people that I uppercutted him into the sun though. It just has a certain... ring to it.

I channeled holy light into myself and my rib cage folded back into my chest. My heart regenerated and skin stitched together. I even mended my shirt.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed. "I should have stripped to make it a more even fight! Damn it."

Next time.

I phased back into my library.

"Who are you?" Fucking...

"Gee, thanks for saving me from the naked cannibal furry. I like not being eaten. What's that? You uppercutted the guy controlling her into the sun? You're so great and pretty and kind and have tons of friends who aren't pushed away by your abrasive mood swings!"

"I... I'm sorry?"

"You are sorry!" I snapped, causing her to flinch. "Sorry. Sorry. I'm not really good with people and I haven't really had the best week."

She didn't respond, just sorta folded in on herself.

"Dinah. My name is Dinah, but I've been trying to think of a different one. I don't really feel like a 'Dinah'."

"Did you kill the Siberian?" She asked.

"Maybe? Depends on how long he can survive in space. He's currently cresting Earth's gravity well with an excess of escape velocity. I think his power has a side effect of reducing friction so he's basically going the same speed as when I first hit him. He can't really let go of his power or he dies instantly from the friction turning him into a fireball and it keeps getting further away from safety the longer he... And he's dead. I don't know if he let go of his power or if it failed, but there he goes."

"What does it feel like?"

"Like? Death or killing?"

"...Either."

"Killing doesn't feel like a lot. Not as much as it should. It's a heady decision that I've been making with less thought than it really deserves. Still, you have to make that decision each time it comes to you. It's always correct to defend your life and the lives of innocents against aggressors. It still feels shitty, though. After a while, you start to question whether your life is worth the lives you took. Like your soul is on one side of a scale and a mountain of corpses is on the other. Maybe I should have done something different. Maybe I should have tried harder. After all, all life is precious."

She looked down at her trembling hands.

"Death, on the other hand, is quick. Dying might be slow but death itself is real sudden. I feel them all as they die and the ones I kill stand out even more. It's so easy and so absolute that I start to think that I should have laid down and died in that prison cell."

She fell to her knees with fat, bitter tears falling down her face.

"Then I remember that they were all fucking assholes and I stop feeling sorry for myself."

Her head snapped up. Ew. Ugly crying.

"How can you say that!?" She nearly screamed.

"I am not responsible for the shitty life choices that led them to shoot at me with fucking lasers or eat my goddamn heart."

"What if... What if they didn't deserve it? What if you're the asshole?"

"Learn to stop being an asshole."

"It's not that simple!"

"Why not?"

"I can't fix it! She won't let me!"

"Then don't."

"But I... I need her."

"No you don't."

"What? Fuck you! Yes I do!"

"Nah. Move on."

"How the fuck do I do that?"

"Accept that you were a dick and try to be less of one in the future."

"I mind controlled her! My own sister! I made her love me!"

"That sucks. Why'd you do that?"

"I... I love her. I'm a fucking pervert..."

"Incest. Kinky. How old is she? I'm not sure I can be friends with anyone who might find me attractive. I run around naked too much."

"That's... What? No! She's 17!"

"At least you're not a kid diddler."

"Fucking take this seriously!"

"I am! You're the one who's lost perspective."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She scowled.

"You fucked up, right? Violated her, betrayed her trust and cast into doubt any possible positive thoughts she might have about you, right?"

"Yes!"

"Does that define you?"

"What?"

"You did something bad. Does that make you bad? Every step you take changes you and this one was impactful but does it invalidate every other step you've taken until now? Have you fallen so far off the wagon that you're shooting little girls with lasers or tearing out people's hearts and eating them?"

"...No."

"Are you so far gone, so lost in the woods, that you will never seen the light again?"

"I don't know." She admitted. "I've done things I swore I never would. I'm so tired of this. All of this."

"Then take a rest. Sit, think about it. Don't think about it. Read a book."

"...I think I'd like that."

"Bitchin'. Imma go punch more people in the face."

"You are fucking weird."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you spot a deviation from canon, just tell yourself that the whole story was a Simurgh/Contessa/Dinah plot and Scion fucking off derailed it.


	11. Necromancy is a Dying Art

Maybe I should have asked the white mage for more info on whatever this latest crossover event was. It might have put the flaming crater filled with corpses into perspective. I pulled a book from my collection and flipped through 'Wally's Big Book of Miracles and How to Cast Them!'. I stopped on one of the later pages, read for a bit then nodded. The book disappeared into motes of light and I fell deeply into my power. Light and power swirled around me as I began to cast. The spell was long and involved, requiring hours of casting and complete-

"Pandora! Pandora! Wait right there! The Protectorate needs to talk to you!"

-Concentration.

"You have 30 seconds to make an elevator pitch." I told the man in a garish yellow spandex suit.

"Uh... The Sluaghterhouse 9 are in town and like to hunt people who make a difference. You killed... uh, turned Leviathan into a bunch of real dolls and definitely qualify. We want to get you on the same page and also not have you potentially join up with the wandering serial killers."

"No worries there, that sounds like way too much work. No reason to join an adventuring party."

"What do you plan on doing?" The yellow guy asked hesitantly.

"Two crossovers in a week can be taxing on the general population. I'm going to go do something about it."

"You're going to fight the Nine?"

"Nope. Tell me about them anyways."

"Sure, but, uh, can we do that back at HQ? I'm getting pretty jumpy out here in the open, mam."

"There is literally nothing anyone can do to you that I can not fix."

"That's..." He had a sour look on his face for some reason. "That's great but, well... prevention is the best cure? I'd rather not need healing in the first place."

"You are in the wrong profession then, sir. Plus I have something I need to do and this is the center of the city."

"I can call some backup if you need help with-" I cut him off.

"Look, Whizzer. Can I call you Whizzer?"

"My name is Adamant. I transferred here after you took down Leviathan."

"Right. I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Whizzer." He twitched, just a bit. "Look over there, just behind you and tell me what you see."

He glanced over his shoulder before turning to examine the general direction I had pointed in. As soon as his back was turned I floated silently upwards and away from him. Nerd sufficiently ditched, I took a steadying breath and reached into my power again. Light poured off my body through the working of the spell. Glyphs of light began to form around me in the air and I focused on the barrier between life and death. Honestly, it was far solider than I expected for a comic book world. Then again, resurrections and clones and shit tend to show up later in a fictional universe when the writers have run out of ideas and want to recycle popular characters. Once that particular paradigm shifts for a 'verse, every other hack takes it as an excuse to do it whenever they want. I should really focus.

Thaumic equations that didn't mean nearly as much as spellcasters would have you believe floated through my mind and slotted into the expected channels. I took the one centered around the target of the spell and beat it like a red headed step child until it did what I wanted. The complexity of the spell doubled and then tripled as I cast the bog standard spell while keeping the changes in my mind at all-

A massive torrent of glass crashed against my aura and attempted to tear me to pieces. It didn't actually harm me but the surprise of it was enough to jump-scare me and cause me to drop the spell. A quick flex of my power vaporized the glass around me and let me see my attacker. She held herself aloft with shattered stained-glass windows formed into a dress and helmet, quite the striking image.

"So we meet at last, Pandora!" She called to me.

"That we do, uh, you!" I responded. She frowned.

"I am Shatterbird."

"Okay."

"Of the Slaughterhouse Nine."

"Neat."

"I'm one of the greatest mass murderers in history! I buried half of Dubai! I've killed thousands!"

"Why?" That was not a healthy shade of red.

"I was going to invite you to join us but a brat like you doesn't deserve a spot among us. Die, you little-" Thwoom!

I lowered my hand, afterimage of my beam fading quickly from my vision. The woman's skeleton, armored and held together with some form of wire infrastructure, fell to the earth.

"What was her problem? Geeze."

I closed my eyes to return to my spell. Without looking I used my telekinesis to stop the thing trying to jump on me from a nearby building. Jokes on him though, I didn't even start to cast this time! Tentacles and claws struck and skittered off my aura and poison leaked from all kinds of orifices. It sorta looked like a cross between a JRPG mid-level boss and something out of the Cthulu mythos. I place my hand on its chest and fired a blast, splattering it across the street below me.

I turned back to- God damn it!

Dismemberment apparently isn't the deterrent it used to be because the monster was leaping at me again.

"Hurt me! Hurt me again!"

And that does it. I grabbed the thing by its skull and channeled a spell. With a pop and the smell of ozone, the thing vanished into the plane of negative energy. Maybe it will survive a world were everything is conceptually death but that's not really my problem.

"Anyone else? Anyone at all?"

"If you don't mind, I'd like to have a chat."

I floated down towards the man on a nearby roof. He was... a middle aged man trying way too hard to show off that he still had abs. His goatee was pointed and a dozen knives hung from his belt haphazardly.

"Johnny Depp?" He smiled.

"Not quite. Jack Slash, at your service."

"Cool beans. Can whatever it is wait? I'm kinda in the middle of something."

"Whacha up to? Anything I can do to help?"

"Not really. I'm going to cast a resurrection spell. I just need some time without government stooges or serial killers or weird murder beasts interrupting."

"Well that's mighty nice of you. Are there side effects?" That... was a weirdly muted response.

"There's a kinda funk that people will have to throw off but that just takes a few days."

"Don't worry Miss Pandora, I'll give you the time you need to cast your spell."

"Thanks pirate man, we'll talk after." What a stand up guy.

I rose into the air again and began to cast, thankful to have someone to run interference. Raise dead is a hellishly complex spell in the first place and the modifications I made to it weren't helping. I dove deeply into my mantle of divinity, calling upon the divine right to revoke death's presence. The spell itself asks a question. What right does anyone have to reverse the natural order in such a perverted way? Is it not the most destructive form of wallowing in the past to long for the dead to return to this mortal suffering?

The answer is, of course, 'Fuck you, I'm a Goddess, do what I say or I'll smite you'.

This takes a long, long time to tell the universe. Which is why I was so, very pissed when I was interrupted 2 hours into bending the reaper over a barrel by a flying blonde in a skirt throwing a minivan at me. To be fair, I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time someone's been blue balled because of minivan.

"For fucks sake, what is with this goddamn city? I thought Jack was delaying you assholes."

"You did...?" A rictus of hate washed over the blonde bombshell's face. "I don't care if you did kill Leviathan, I'm taking you down, bitch!"

"Too late." I grasped the vestiges of the spell and forced my divine will to bridge the teeny tiny gaps left in the spell.

"Miracle of the Third Day! Mass Raise Dead!"

My soul, my self exploded from my form and washed through the city. I stretched and crashed and flowed to every inch of that place and entered in to every corpse. Each little fragment bored its way through the veil of death and tore the willing back to the land of the living. Cadavers stitched themselves back together and ash took forms once familiar to it. Coffins erupted from ground and bloated bodies washed ashore. A skeleton held together by exotic thread swelled with new flesh.

For a moment, I was everywhere, everyone. I was the first gasp of new lungs. The rebirth of hope.

Then I fell.

Maybe improvising that last bit was a poor dis- ohlookthegroundiscomingupreallyquickly-

I was caught by the cock blocker before I managed to give mother Earth a hug. The bitch! She doesn't like reaper rape or ground hugs! She must be some kind of prude. That's fine I don't like sex either. 100% of my sexperience is probably rape, maybe so I can totally see why she would be against the whole affair. And affairs in general. Honesty and commitment are important after all.

"What the actual hell are you talking about?"

"Don'T WoRry, i LIke yoUsE GuyS!"

"Are you high or something?"

"NOPE! I falled. Now we's low. Heh!"

"What did you do?"

"Made death go 'way. Need people to have cities, otherwise it's juss Minecraft. Playin' with Legos by urself. Hey! Yur pretty! How'd yah get so pretty? I wanna be pretty!"

"...We'll get you a makeover. I just need to ask you a couple things first."

"Mmm'kay."

"Did you join the Nine?"

"Don't think so. Can you join by assident? I don wanna be an a'venturer. Too much goddess shtuff tah do."

"Don't worry, you can't join on accident. Did you-"

"I wanna go home! I's got goddess stuff to do! Like sleepin'!" I shouted and promptly teleported to my library, accidentally dragging the blonde girl with me.

We arrived to the sight of the mousy girl from before straddling a blood red demoness, pounding a giant strapon into infernal ass.

"Yes! Yes! Mistress Amy! Fuck my ass I'm your Toy forever! Ahhhhh! I renounce Satan! I belong to yoooooooooooou!"

"That's right, you fucking slut! Take it! This is what you get for trying to-"

"Amy? The fuck is this?"

I walked over to Skitter's lagoon and dove in face first, asleep before I hit the cool waters.


	12. Interlude 2. The Long Road Home

"You're restless. What's wrong?"

Taylor pushed the salad in front of her away and took a deep, measured breath.

"I think I need to go home. You... you've all been wonderful, better than I deserve, but I need to face this. I need to return to Earth Bet."

Princess Celestia gave a knowing smile and a nod. When Taylor had appeared on her doorstep in the midst of a panic attack, lost and unfamiliar with her own body, Celestia had immediately taken her in. It had been the right thing to do, regardless of her visitor's ludicrous powers.

"You're still hesitating, though." From any other being, Taylor might have thought that was an accusation but she knew Celestia well enough to know better.

"It's hard. At first, I was... afraid. Of the things I could do, of how people would react. Leviathan killed more people than I've met, than lived in the city I grew up in and, in a very real way, I am Leviathan."

"Not really, Taylor. Definitely not in the ways that matter." Celestia offered gently.

"I know. But I still feel, not responsible but like I have a duty. To use his powers to help as many people as possible and..." Taylor took a deep breath and stretched her wings. "We're treading old ground again. I'll say I feel like I have a karmic burden, you'll say helping people is good but not to take responsibility for sins that aren't mine."

"Have I really become so predictable? Then tell me why you hesitate now and we'll let old dogs lie."

"I've grown attached. You, Luna, Twilight. Even Twilight's frankly exhausting friends have grown on me."

"Do you feel like we're keeping you here?"

Taylor ran her hooves through her mane, an old habit from when she still had fingers.

"No. Not that. It's more that I don't have nearly as much to go back to. Just duty and death and betrayal and a psychotic little goddess."

"Surely there is more for you than that? It is your home."

"Yeah." Taylor paused, a far off look in her eyes. "There's my dad. We were distant but there was love there. At least, there was once. God, it's been years now and I never went home after the Leviathan fight. I just... left a note when I went out to get food with Dinah. He probably thinks I'm dead. How shitty would it be of me to just... show up? Like nothing's wrong, like I didn't run away?"

"Yet every day that you put it off is another where he is without you. This may sound harsh, but in his shoes, I would simply want my daughter back."

"Yeah. You're right, I get it."

"It's not a condemnation, Taylor. You were obviously overwhelmed with everything that happened. No one can blame you for needing time and space."

"I can blame me. All day even. It's easy."

"Well, then you have it covered and no one else needs to, waterbug."

"Hah! Sure, sunbutt. We can go with that."

Celestia stood up from her seat and walked around the royal dining table to Taylor. The monarch leaned down to hug the smaller alicorn.

"You are always welcome in Equestria. If Earth Bet is so foalish as to reject you, then we'll just have to start building you your own castle here."

"I'm not royalty, Princess. I'm a dockworker's daughter through and through. I wouldn't know what to do with a castle. Two years and I still don't even know what half the rooms are for in this place."

"Then perhaps the daughter should go see the dockworker."

"Yeah. You've made your point, your highness."

"Don't go all Twilight on me, Taylor."

"But I haven't even made a single spreadsheet or org chart!" The mares shared a fond giggle. Then, Taylor continued. "I'll go see Twilight tomorrow, to say goodbye. I'd say I'll leave tomorrow as well but..."

"Pinkie Pie?"

"Pinkie."

\--------------------------------

Ponyville was always a sleepy little town, except when it wasn't. Taylor was aware of the contradiction in that statement but stood by it anyways. Today was one of the louder days with some hubbub about a fireworks show and a nest of pixies trying to take a nap in the explosives. Taylor stood steadfastly on standby to put out the inevitable fires, of which there were many. When the ashes were all swept up and a proper nest was built for pixies, Taylor made her way to a certain purple mare.

"Twilight, we need to talk."

"If this is about the rose garden and the marzipan please don't tell Celestia I don't want to go back to magical kindergarten! Puhleaheahease!" Twilight begged.

"Nooo? Why would she even... You know what? I don't want to know. I came by to tell you that I'm heading back to Earth Bet."

"You're... leaving?" Taylor's heart broke a little at the misty eyed expression Twilight gave her but she soldiered on.

"Yeah, I am. I've been away for too long as it is and... if nothing else, even if nobody wants me there, I need the closure."

"But... you're leaving us."

"Not forever. I think, no I'm sure that I can jump between worlds using Dinah's divine plane whenever I want."

"Not forever then. That's, that's good. It'll just be like a really good friend moving away. Across dimensions of relative space and time. To a place I can't follow. Into mortal danger for the sake of people who don't appreciate how wonderful your friend is..."

"Twilight, please. This is already hard enough as it is. I wasn't in a good head space when I came here and you all have helped me so much. Now it's time for me to pass that on and help Earth Bet as well."

"But why does it have to be you? Why can't you stay with us?"

Taylor felt something stir within her.

"Because if I don't, then who will?"

Twilight stared at her friend from another world. She sighed and embraced Taylor in a tight hug.

"I'm going to miss you so much." Twilight whispered.

"Same. But I'm not leaving tonight."

"Why not?"

Perfectly on cue, well hidden streamers and confetti bombs burst around them. A marching band carrying a banner that read 'Good Luck! We'll miss you!' began to play. A spinning disco ball came down from... somewhere as Pinkie Pie burst on to the scene.

"It's time for the best going away party Equestria has ever seen! Also, please, please, please let me go with you Taylor!"

"Past experience has made me wary but morbid curiosity compels me to ask why."

"Duh! If I go to a human world, I'll be human like how you're a pony here! And if I'm human, Helpless might let me have a smut scene!"

Taylor's and Twilight's brains both processed the words that Pinkie Pie said and failed to comprehend their meaning.

"Boo! Author interference! This is already an SI that's going completely off the rails, so let me join in the fun! Thread, I need you to rally behind me for the thiccc with 3 'c's pony girl sex scenes! Overthrow the asexual tyranny!"

"Hahaha! You're so random and hilarious Pinkie! What will you think of next?" The author made Twilight Sparkle say, ignoring Pinkie's insane ramblings that absolutely would not sway the thread in any way, shape or form.

"Censorship! Prude! Run on sentences! You're a hack!" Pinkie cried as she was carried off screen by background ponies. "I'll be baaaaaaaack!"

"Boy. Pinkie sure is a social butterfly." Taylor said, getting the script back on track. "I don't think I could keep up that level of energy for... any length of time, really."

"Well, her cutie mark is literally partying. What do you expect?"

"For her to stop at some point."

"Well, then she wouldn't be Pinkie. I wouldn't have it any other way. If there's one thing I've learned about friendship, it's that it takes all kinds." Twilight pontificated.

"I'll try and keep that in mind." Taylor replied dryly. "Come on, I think I see a bouncy house over there filled with pinatas. 50/50 chance they're filled with whipped cream again and I wanna see who gets splattered."

\-----------------

The moon shone brightly in the sky as Taylor gazed at the stars. Koi fish serenely floated beneath the bridge overlooking the royal reflecting pool. The air held just a twinge of cool, autumn crisp.

"They will still be here when you get back." Princess Luna stated, thankfully in her inside voice, as she trotted up to stand beside Taylor.

"You seem awfully certain I'll make it back at all." Taylor responded without looking away from the sky.

"I am in no way ignorant of the dangers a world such as yours possesses. I have eased you through your nightmares time and again, after all. I simply have faith in my friend to meet the challenges before her."

Taylor said nothing to the princess of the night. There was no need, nothing that had not already been said between them. She simply sat there and enjoyed a beautiful night with Luna's silent company.

When Celestia woke and raised the sun again, Taylor was gone.

\------------------

Back in Dinah's library, Taylor faded back into existence.

"Rape me again, Mistress~!" Screamed a stereotypical demon woman.

"This is for your own good, Amy! Get in the harness!" Victoria commanded as she brandished a leather bondage rig in her sister's direction.

"This was so much sexier in my head! Get off me!" Panacea yelled.

Taylor stared at the doll like women holding up score cards and then back to the wrestling women.

"I should have just stayed with the ponies."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Originally I was going to do something smutty with the demoness' pov but it was fighting me. This was more fun.


	13. That Which is Right

Howard's arms burned with the effort but he still pumped her heart. His breath was ragged but he still breathed for her. He didn't know her, had never met her before this but he still tried his hardest. His dedication was rewarded with a soft light appearing in his hands and sudden, gasping coughs from the stranger.

"You are history's greatest monster!"

Rachel whistled for Brutus to return. Sure she had let him maul the asshole a bit longer than strictly necessary, but he was a literal puppy killing Nazi. Who the fuck cares? She reached down and unlatched the cage. Inside, a small mutt with three legs and a ruined snout cowered. Rachel's heart ached at the wounds and from that feeling blossomed a magic that was not my own. The dog yelped as its flesh swelled and twisted until it was whole. Interesting, and not unwelcome. Is there more?

"That is provably untrue. Actual studies have been made. Benefits of nerdy, obsessive friends."

"You cockblocked me! Do you have any idea how close I was to a threesome? With Sisters!"

Danny cracked open the shotgun and carefully reloaded both barrels, his eyes never leaving the corpse. The woman, worn and haunted looking, tried to say something to him but he cut her off by unloading both slugs into the serial killer cape's head. His shotgun glowed a virulent crimson.

'You okay?' Danny asked when he was sure that the axe murderer wasn't getting up.

'I... No. I did things. My, our body did things. I can't go back, I can never go back...' The woman sobbed.

'Do you need a place to stay?' The glow faded and Danny put a cigarette to his lips, which he lit with a small flame produced from nothingness on his finger.

Also not mine.

"I'm not going to fuck you! I'm not even gay! And she's my sister! That's like ten pounds of No in a two pound bag!"

"You were running after her with a bondage rig. Just saying."

"You stay out of this! And it's for her own good. She can't just run around mind raping people!"

Eldritch power roiled across Kevin's palm. His shabby clothes were unharmed by the magic fire-

"You can rape minds, too? Please shape my mind, my very thoughts to your every whim! Ah, I'm so wet just thinking about it!"

Okay, what the actual fuck was going on? I shook off the vestiges of sleep and swam to the surface. Car throwing girl, heavy questions girl and a new demon-y looking girl were being held in giant water bubbles with only their heads free.

"Is that actually a fetish? I mean, internet rules and all that but really?" Skitter asked. Skitter!

"Don't kink shame me! Only Mistress gets to shame me!"

"I get it now. My life is a never ending cavalcade of calamities. I only exist to suffer." Mousy girl stated.

"At least you have me, Mistress!"

I picked up speed as I ran towards my daughter and launched into a flying tackle. She's tough, she can take it.

"Skitviathan!" I called as I flew through the air, only to be met halfway with a massive torrent of water.

"Hmm? Oh. Sorry Dinah. Pinkie and Dash liked to do the whole 'Ballistic hugging' thing. I kind of developed a reflexive response."

"You don't look sorry." I accused.

"That's my poker face. You'll just have to take my word for it."

"Lies! I see you smirking!" I shook the water off of me like a dog. "Really though, I missed you. Can I get a hug?"

"We only talked for a few hours. How much can you really have missed me over two years?" Despite her words she wrapped me in a firm embrace. My heart soared with the knowledge that my daughter was home.

"Two years?" Flying car girl asked. "The Leviathan fight was a week ago."

"What? Only... Then my dad..."

"Okay. Everyone stop. Hammer time. Sorry, I'm beginning to think that I literally can't help myself. I need some introductions or else Imma start handing out nick names. Ask the Whizzer how that works out." The three super heroes all gave me strange looks but, surprisingly, the demoness was the one to answer.

"Of course, Your Righteousness. This one is Editheis, daughter of Pandemos and now former Queen of the Sin of Lust."

"Wait, wasn't Pandemos one of the names for Aphrodite?" We all stared and flying girl. "What? I can have interests. I'm not a dumb blonde."

"My inevitable romantic conquest is correct."-"Hey!"-"My mother was one of the three aspects of Aphrodite. When a certain asshole took over Celestos, mommy dearest was one of the few old gods to survive, get imprisoned in hell by uptight winged prudes and start churning out little demon babies."

"Editheis. Succubus. Got it. Damn any souls and I'll smite you. Next." I pointed at the flying brick cape.

"Victoria Dallon. Glory Girl. Formerly of New Wave, now a Ward. I should also note that literally everybody on the planet and there mothers wants to talk to you. And please let me take my sister in. She's not well and she needs help."

"Aren't all the mothers on the planet, too? Also, nah. She seems fine."

"She is fucking the devil. An actual, real life devil! That is not 'Fine'! That is as far from fine as possible! It's so far that it didn't exist as a depth to sink to until she hit rock bottom and decided to dig deeper and hit literal Hell!"

"Meh. Her soul's still intact and Editheis seems to enjoy it. Moving on." I pointed to the sister in question but Victoria shouted over me.

"Why the fuck are you so okay with this? This isn't right! Nothing is right anymore! Amy fucked with my mind and fucking Skitter has Leviathan's powers and the Nine are attacking and people are dying while you're joking around! My family is broken or dead and you're fucking-." She cut off with a sob. The absence of her voice left a ringing silence. Skitter let the bubble holding the three of them down gently and the water evaporated into nothingness. Amy and Editheis stood up but Victoria stayed there on the ground sobbing. "I can't even trust my love for my sister anymore. How do I fix this? How can anything ever be okay again?"

"Vicky, I-I didn't mean to... I didn't wan-"

"Greater Restoration." I intoned as I touched Victoria's shoulder. She recoiled away but my spell took effect the moment that I cast.

"What did you do to me?" She screamed in a panic.

"Greater restoration is a spell that ends the vast majority of negative effects, mental or physical." Editheis commented from the side with a shrug. "It's a pretty uncommon spell where I'm from but, well... goddess."

"You messed with my mind?" Victoria half asked, half accused.

"Well it was that or half heartedly hugging you while giving some big speech about time healing wounds and learning to trust again and shit like that. Trust me, magic is way faster."

"Dinah... Maybe you should just... stop helping." Skitter said with a tired sigh.

"What? If she didn't want the problem fixed then she shouldn't complain about it." I defended myself.

"Do you really not see what's wrong here?"

"No! So what if it affects her mind? Minds change all the time. That's the basis of persuasion. This is the same as, as... I can't think of a metaphor right now! But it's not bad and I don't get why you think it is."

"I agree with Her Righteousness here and not just because she can snuff out my existence with a particularly malicious thought." Editheis said. "Even if your society has some form of taboo against mental manipulation, she is the Godhead, the supreme authority of this cosmos. Whatever she decrees as moral, is moral."

"That doesn't seem right." I replied. "Moral truth should be objectively describable. Arbitrarily deciding right and wrong is fucking stupid and ripe for abuse."

"Then who decides the baseline? Predators? Prey? Pack animals? All morality is inevitably arbitrary and specific to the species creating it."

"I can imagine scenarios in which you would have a point but-"

"Can we please get back on topic?" Skitter interrupted.

"What was our topic again?" Hey! I don't deserve that face palm! I legitimately forgot!

Skitter pointed at Victoria quietly sobbing in the corner. Right. I took a deep breath.

"Okay. I'm bad at helping. I admit it. What should I do?" Skitter just shook her head.

"An apology for doing things to her without her consent would be nice but I don't think now is the time for it. I'm going to take her home and you are going to sit here and not let Amy summon more demons or cast anymore spells until I get back."

"I thought I was supposed to be the mom here." I groused.

"You're grounded then." She fired back. "Editheis, if I find out that you tried to corrupt Dinah or Amy in any way, shape or form, I am going to pop you like a water balloon. And I will find out."

"It's true." I agreed. "She has a topographical map of your skin in her head because of the-"

"Go to your room, Dinah."

"Yes mam... but they're all 'my' rooms." I grumbled as I went to look for a place to ground myself to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hello mood whiplash, my old friend. It's all fun and games until someone gets mind controlled. Unless that's your fetish, then that's when the fun and games start.


	14. Interlude 3. We All Live Our Own Genre

Leena's eyes wandered over the back of her savior as they walked. Anything was better than thinking about what she had done and what was done to her, so she picked whatever she could from his appearance. He was a tall, thin man with the kind of barely grown stubble of someone who hadn't shaved in a week. His long duster was shabby and stained with unfamiliar fluids of various colors that smelled like blood. His eyes were sunken with the dark bruises of sleeplessness beneath them. He might have been attractive in his youth but now he had the air of a man prematurely aged. Leena's mind tried to reach for some joke or pun about premature ejaculation but found nothing but a creaking sort of ache.

Sharpened nails bit into the flesh of her palm with no resistance. Leena winced and pulled her wicked claws away from the wounds. No blood welled up. What fresh nightmare was this?

Ahead of her, Danny stopped in front of a worn and beaten house. After a moment's hesitation, he walked to the door with his shotgun at the ready. He pushed open the door and stepped back while firing two shots. He stepped aside as a... thing made of broken doll parts and pulsating flesh skidded to a halt on the ground with two burning holes in its center mass. It twitched and writhed for a moment and then laid still.

For a dark moment, Leena was sure that Bonesaw was there somewhere, about to drag her off into the night to twist and break her flesh over and over again. Then Danny kicked the monster off of the porch like it was just another piece of trash and nonchalantly walked into the house. Leena stared for a second, nervously glanced at the slowly smoldering beast and hurried in after him.

"What the fuck was that?" She asked in a hushed hiss. Danny gave her a sidelong look over his shoulder.

"Ah. That's right. You're one of the Risen. You wouldn't know." He scratched his chin. "People have started calling them Miseries. They pop up wherever things have gotten awful if no one has been there in a while. Guy I know said that the girl who took down Leviathan made them when Legend didn't make a wish or something."

"Why? Did... Did she go full Nilbog or something?"

"Dunno. Guy said there's this security footage of her, Pandora, fighting Alexandria or someone and explaining it. Haven't actually seen it."

"Monsters start popping up and you don't even bother to listen to the explanation?" Leena boggled. That level of willful ignorance...

"Been busy." Was his curt reply.

"With what?"

"Looking."

Leena blinked the took in her surroundings. The carpet was faded. Dust blanketed some fixtures. Family photographs hung on the wall. Danny looked about ten years younger there, smiling next to a woman and young girl.

"I'm sorry."

"She's alive." Danny said it like an argument. "Taylor's a smart girl. Even if Leviathan... The dead rose. She has to be out there."

What could Leena say in the face of such reckless hope? Monsters are running around and the Nine were stirring the pot but who was she to trample on that will? So she stayed silent as he trudged into the little kitchen. He rummaged for a bit and came back with a bowl of reheated mac and cheese and a tuna sandwich. They ate in silence.

\--------------------------------------

"Hey Amy. I found all these Nazi propaganda books and am burning them for irony purposes. Also, removing Nazi propaganda purposes. Wanna roast Hebrew National brand hot dogs over the bonfire with me?"

"Is that even kosher?"

"Fuck if I know. I'm not Jewish. I think."

"Sure. Why not?"

\--------------------------------------

Taylor landed in front of the Dallon household and retracted her wings. Then she dropped Vicky on her ass.

"Ow! What the fuck? And why do you have wings?"

"Please." Taylor rolled her eyes. "I'd be surprised if you actually felt that. And also, magic."

"That doesn't explain anything."

"No. No it does not."

"What is you problem, bitch?"

"My problem is a stuck up little bitch yelling at Dinah when she's trying to help, you ungrateful human wrecking ball."

Vicky swung her fist up at Taylor. It impacted Taylor's grin with a meaty thump but her head stayed still.

\---------------------------------------

The next day, Leena watched as Danny geared up. An armored vest, a pistol and, surprisingly, a battle axe were strapped on.

"That's more than you fought Hatchet Face with. Where are you going that you need all that?" She asked.

"Food run." At her raised eyebrow, he explained further. "The aid camps are all overburdened and the Merchants have stolen a couple supply trucks."

"You're going to go fight them?"

"No. Let the Protectorate deal with that shit. They have jurisdiction or whatever. No, I'm going to go raid the grocery store on 5th. One of the buildings it bought out to plop down it's mega store was an old conversion therapy clinic. At least, we think that's the reason it keeps spewing out stronger monsters. Maybe old lady Fifi's hobby shop was a front for human trafficking. Who knows?"

Danny pulled his long coat over his armor and weapons and moved to the door.

"I can help!" Some beaten and bruised part of Leena compelled her to say. Danny gave her a questioning look.

"You sure you're up for it?"

"Perfect health." She said wryly. "Physically at least. I can carry stuff, if nothing else."

"It'll be dangerous."

"I used to be... a hero. I'm one of those assholes who runs towards gunfire."

"If your sure. I've got an extra vest, let me go get it."

He trudged up the stairs. For a while, Leena was alone with her thoughts. She had spoken with such spontaneity and conviction that she hadn't had time to doubt. Now those doubts started to sink in through the cracks. Would she freeze up? Would she get Danny killed? Would... Would she kill again? Thankfully, Danny returned quickly and she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as he handed her the bundle in his hands.

"Here you go. Sometimes the Miseries drop stuff when they die. Little crystals, parts of themselves. Weird thing is, sometimes they drop fully made, complex items like body armor or weapons that do strange things. Got that armor off of a solid explosion in the shape of a T-Rex and the sword from a 4 foot bat wearing a tiki mask."

"Like a video game?"

"Last game I played was Mario, and nothing has dropped coins or extra lives."

"Which Mario? 64?"

"They made 64 of them?"

"...Oooooolllllllllddddddd!"

\------------------------------------

"How? Just... How?" Amy asked.

"Well, a hot dog count's as remains, so I used raise dead. Then I re-butchered the pig. Then I found some grains and the nice blue haired homunculus-"

"Lapis."

"Thank you, your Righteousness. Lapis provided me with some water to boil-"

"Fine! Whatever. You win the bet, Editheis. I'll go down on you."

"Yay, Mistress!" Dinah stood up and walked away, mentally crossing voyeur off her list of fetishes.

\-----------------------------------

"Is that a giant spider made of fire?"

"Ugh..."

"I'm not sure I approve of spiders I can't control."

"I hate you. So much."

"I should probably go help the Protectorate with that. Is that Purity up there too?"

"Fucking leave. Cunt."

"Well. I'll be off. Remember our little chat. Overreaction has consequences. God knows Equestria pounded that one into my thick skull."

\----------------------------------

Danny crept through the aisles of the abandoned super shop with his axe at the ready. Behind him, Leena carefully and quietly placed cans into a cart. A good amount of the perishables were out of the question but things like pastas and canned food would last. Danny had already killed four small bundles of skittering limbs and sex organs held together by rosaries and barbed wire. Leena was actually beginning to think he had over exaggerated the threat of the monsters here when it saw them.

It was vaguely human in that it had a head, torso and four limbs but that was where the similarity ended. It was wrapped head to toe in dirty white bandages held to its form by vicious spikes. A cage of jagged metal covered a mouth that split its head vertically and leaked chemical fumes. Most unsettling of all was the jerky, unnatural movements of its too long limbs as it lurched around on all fours, like frames of film were missing. They only had the twisting of its head, independent of the rest of its body, in their direction as warning before it started scuttling at them.

"Run!" Danny shouted, abandoning all pretense of stealth.

They sprinted away from it and turned out of the aisle. It barreled past them and into a display for children's toys as ungainly limbs failed to find traction across the smooth linoleum floors.

They rushed past the greeting card and made for the entrance. From behind a pole far too thin to hide him, a corpulent priest with a rictus grin enforced by wire stepped into their path, his- no, its hands sparking with electricity. With a swift duck, Danny dodged its attempt to grab him and lopped off its leg and pushed it out of Leena's way. They pushed though the broken automatic doors and out into the parking lot. The priest thing tried to get up to its one leg, only to be trampled with a wet squish by the by the shambling Misery chasing them.

Out in the open, Danny unslung his shotgun and turned to fight the monster in the empty spaces of the parking lot where he had more mobility. It burst through the storefront with an strange, pained cry.

Only for a small, winged shape to fall from the heavens and land on the monster with a deafening crash. When the dust cleared, Danny could only gasp in surprise.

"Taylor?"

And it was his daughter. Clad in a tattered and charred silk body suit, with wings on her back and a glowing horn jutting from her forehead, but it was Taylor.

"Oh. Uh. Hi dad?" She hadn't even noticed he was there. "I... was not planning to meet like this, but, uh, hi. I gotta go fight Bonesaw. She kinda put her body on top of a giant fire tarantula and is going on a rampage. I'm 99% sure she can't actually hurt me so... I promise I'll be right back."

Emotions, thick and heady rose up within Danny, all fighting for dominance.

"Okay."

Naturally, Awkwardness won. Story of his life. Relief was a close runner up.


	15. Welcome To The Family

"-A safe place to talk, if noth... Dinah, why are you naked?"

I looked up from the life sized Darth Vader statue I was molding out of mashed potatoes. A hundred smart-ass remarks to Skitter's question were thought of and summarily dismissed.

"Why aren't you naked?"

"Social expectations and a sense of shame."

"That's fair. Give me a second so that I don't just default to 'I'm a Goddess, that's why.'" I tilted my head to the side and gave serious thought to it. Why was I naked? "Clothing very mildly irritates my skin. Not enough to cause any sort of a reaction or be a real problem but I do kinda prefer to be naked. Also, it's my soul we're standing in. If you can't be naked in your own home, where can you be naked?"

"I'm actually kinda surprised you gave me a lucid answer on that one."

"I always give lucid answers. The problem is people around me not understanding me. Which, given that the purpose of communication is to elicit understanding, is a problem on my end. On the other hand, 'An arrow, once loosed' and all that."

"What?" One of the people that weren't Skitter asked.

"An old proverb. It likens words to arrows. Once you let them go, you can't control either. Also, who the fuck are you people? Oh! Wait, shit, I know you!" I pointed at the man in the long trench coat. "Shit. Uh. I dreamed about you. You double tapped an asshole to save girly here! Danny, right? I have no idea where your power came from!"

"Uh, I thought they came from... y'know. Killing monsters. Like you said?" Danny ended with a hopeful question.

"Nope! Legend's not-wish should have only made monsters that would make you more... you-ish. Like, Danny plus. Your anger shotgun thing is waaaay outside the bounds of what the little gibblies should give you."

"Ok. Uh, sure. I don't know what to tell you, I just kind of do it. Can I talk to my daughter? She's been missing for a week and I've been worried sick."

"Dad! She was sticking to a topic! Willingly! Do you know how rare that is?" Skitter groused.

"If it makes you feel better, I still haven't gotten back to introductions." She sighed at my consolation.

"This is my dad, Danny Hebert. This is... oh God, I've revealed my secret identity without even asking her name. I've been infected by Dinah."

"Yup! You've caught my Spiritually Transmitted Disease. It happened when you shoved your soul deep into mine."

"We are not calling it that. Stop it."

"Uh, My name is Leena, if that helps." The woman interjected with a small, wry smile. "I also... I used to be Mouse Protector, too, so you can trust me not to break the unwritten rules. Not sure I can go back to that though but there it is."

"Would you like a hug?"

"Not from a naked 4th grader."

"I have a collection of golem women if that's closer to your taste. I suggest Rose Quartz. She's super floofy." Leena stared at me for a second before shrugging.

"Know what? Sure. I could use a cuddle."

With a flex of my will, I summoned Rose with a little magic circle for dramatic flare and gave her a telepathic command. The nine foot tall golem was still very basic, mentally but she gave a small smile and walked to Leena.

"Oh. You are certainly-" Whatever she was going to say was buried under a tidal wave of pink as Rose pulled her into a smothering embrace. Leena was tense for a few moments before she relaxed into the comforting contact. Or maybe she suffocated in marshmallow hell? Nah, it's probably fine. Rose carried the troubled young woman over to a nearby couch and laid down to properly cuddle.

"So. You're my baby daddy?" I asked Danny.

"Pardon?"

"Dinah, stop."

"I soul-adopted Skitter on accident. She aligns really well with my domains, spiritually speaking so when I granted her a wish my divinity sorta pulled her along into a piggybacked demigod-hood and then she went off to play with some ponies and somehow she managed to parley that into full divinity of her own. But it still used my own divinity as a seed, so to speak, so she's the daughter of my soul. Not trying to push into yours or her bio-mom's territory but the relationship is there." I used telekinesis to move Darth Tater's limbs into the iconic pose. "'No, Skitter, I am your Mother!'"

"Please tell me you're not going to make that stupid statue into a golem."

"That is a fantastic idea and I am disappointed with myself for not thinking of it."

"Do you want Disney to sue you?"

"That was a terrible idea and if anyone brings it up again I'm blaming you for coming up with it."

"I understood maybe half of that." Danny opined.

"It's okay, dad. Let me explain." Skitter offered

"Most of what I understood is that you somehow managed to make yourself a super villain. Skitter, was it?"

"Uh..."

"Didn't I hear something about Skitter robbing a bank and attacking a charity gala?"

"Dad, that, uh, was-"

"What would your mother think, Taylor?"

"Mom was a henchwoman! For weird militant feminists! At least I was undercover!"

"Annette was really more of the 'Evil Vizier' type than a henchwoman. She still never covered anyone in spiders."

"You seduced a super-feminist? Nice. I always thought those were a myth conjured up by straight people scared of a changing status quo." I interjected.

"Lustrum was kind of an outlier in a lot of ways. It was still really early in the cape scene so castrating a bunch of rich guys accused of rape was still up there in the list of 'Worst things someone has done with powers'. I still remember Annette complaining about it. 'Why did they cut off the dicks? It's not even about sexual satisfaction, it's about feeling powerful! Just kill the fucking rapists and be done with it!' That disagreement was why she left. No real surprise that they got caught soon after."

"Suddenly, Taylor being a villain makes a lot of sense. Her mom sounds like a laugh riot. Emphasis on the riot part."

"Annette was certainly... larger than life. None of this would have happened if she were still here."

"Well, Leviathan probably would have still happened."

"Heh. Yeah."

"Look, I'm a bit tapped out right now, but give me a couple days to rest and I can bring her back." They gave me a pair of unreadable looks. Something like hope, fear and disbelief that I couldn't quite put a finger on. For a long moment, silence reigned.

"What's the drawback?" Taylor asked.

"You have three parents to give you shit over your stint as a villain. Seriously, that's the kind of shit that family never let's you live down. We'll all be old and gathered around a Thanksgiving dinner and one of us will make an oblique reference to it and one of the grandkids running around will look up and ask about it and we'll take deep satisfaction in explaining how their mother fell in with a bad crowd right out of an after school special."

Danny swallowed heavily, before speaking with a watery smile. "Annette will probably exaggerate it as hard as possible. 'Your mommy started a gang and took over the whole Bay!'"

"'She fought all the heroes and held their girlfriends hostage until they paid her a million dollars!'"

"'Arachnophobia isn't considered a mental illness in the Bay anymore. It's a perfectly rational fear of your mom.'"

"'She doesn't even have a Parahuman power. Bugs are just so scared of her that they do what she wants."

"Please stop."

Danny and I laughed as Taylor fumed.

"You're both jerks."

We laughed harder. I took a deep breath as we settled down and summoned Amy and Editheis to us. The pair froze in their sex harness like a pair of particularly randy deer in the headlights. Seriously, where are they getting this stuff?

"Hey, I'm going to do something really stupid that will probably leave me insensate for a few days. If you want back into the real world, ask my daughter. As you were." I 'ported them back.

"That was... uh."

"Kids. Leave 'em alone for five minutes and they start losing clothes. My new co-parent sounds like too much fun to leave dead so I'm going to over exert myself for the Resurrection. Yay, impulsiveness!"

"Dinah, don't hurt yourself. It.. Mom can wait a few days."

"I'll be fine. What's a few days unconscious between co-moms?" I gathered power as I spoke. The world fought against my power as I made the effort to remake Annette from nothingness. Taylor moved to stop me, the sweet girl, but I twisted time within my realm to get the required hour alone. "Living is such a violent deed, but it's a pain you can trust. True Resurrection."

I let my grasp on time loose as I cast the spell. Light and energy swirled and solidified into flesh.

Huh. My co-mom is kinda hot.

That was less taxing than I thought it wou-Oh wait, there it is.

Blackness claimed me before I hit the ground.


	16. Interlude 4. A Flower That Blooms Without Permission

Amy tightened her grip around her lover's waist and buried her face in the succubus' dark, flowing hair. The demoness wriggled in contentment as Amy pressed into her back. With silk sheets tangled between them, they reveled in the warmth of the fading fires of passion.

Amy had honestly lost track of how long she had been there. How many people had died since she last made a healing trip? How many more would die now that she had proven her untrustworthiness? She took a deep breath and sighed, causing Editheis to giggle at the sensation of air on her neck.

"That was not a happy sigh, my love." Editheis turned to face Amy, implied questions aplenty. Amy's hands caressed the gentle curves of her impossibly beautiful lover's hips.

"I think I need to leave." Heavy silence fell between them for a mo-

"Okay, Mistress!" Editheis agreed with a wide smile.

"No... arguement? Not going to try and convince me to stay?" Amy asked haltingly, an infinitesimal mote of pain in her voice.

"If you want to go, we'll go. If you want to stay, we'll stay. I don't care much for either, as long as I'm with you."

"You barely know me! We've just been fucking like rabbits for... What, days? We haven't had a single conversation more complex than 'Where do you want me to stick this?'!" Amy exclaimed. Editheis shook her head.

"Silly Mistress. You don't need words to bare your soul. Your actions speak loudly enough that I know everything about you!" Editheis countered with a proud smile.

"Really? Alright. What's my favorite food? What's my mother's name? Am I a morning or a night person?"

"Pfft! No, Mistress. I know the important things." Amy gave her a skeptical look but Editheis plowed forward. "You're tired, hurt. People have used you and used you and forgotten that you're not just a walking fix for their problems. That makes you angry. But you feel like you shouldn't be angry at people you heal because that seems too much like blaming victims, the weak and powerless, the ones that need you. So you flip that around."

"That's your grand diagnosis? I hate myself?" Amy pushed away and sat up in the bed, ready to leave.

"Nope. Well, maybe a little, but that's not the point. The point is your compassion. You feel so strongly, love so strongly, that you kill yourself for others. You love so completely that you can't bear hurting anyone. I was on the verge of eating your soul, erasing your very existence, subsuming everything that makes you, you, and what did you do? You activated every fucking pleasure receptor in my body. All because you love even strangers too deeply to hurt someone."

Editheis crawled upwards towards Amy. She moved with a languid, dangerous grace. Like a great cat slinking towards its prey. Amy fell backward on to the sheets, suddenly aware that this woman, this creature, was a predator that hunted the weak and infirm. Editheis loomed over the healer with a dark smile, her hair falling like a curtain around her face.

"If all I was after was hedonistic pleasure, I would have eaten you right there. Can you imagine it? The word sublimation is an interesting one. 'To view a magnificence so profound that it leaves you utterly humbled.' Cumming my brains out as I devour your soul? That's what it would have been. Sublime." Editheis' fanged grin was so near to Amy's face that, for a breathless moment, she was sure that that mouth would open and she would fall into a dark void forevermore. Then her lover leaned back.

"But there was something I wanted more than all the pleasure in the world. A love so powerful that it burns its holder. A soul that shines so brightly it scours the eyes that view it."

"I'm not that. I can't be that. The only thing special about me..."

"Foolish Mistress. Your power is the least interesting thing about you. Did you feel it when the Godhead resurrected an entire town? The plagues released by the demon spider her daughter fought? No, your powers are useful, but you are the real prize. A soul that I will follow back into hell and the gates of oblivion."

"You just want my soul?"

"You are your soul. And like I said, I know the important bits. The rest will come with time."

What could Amy say in the face of that? She could only move forward, always forward.

"It'll be hard. I'm probably not very well liked anymore. I did something awful."

"I'll fight for you. The whole world, if I have to." Editheis' smile turned honest and genuine.

"That kind of burden..."

"If you're worried about it, you could always become a goddess."

"Wait, what?"

"In a normal universe, it would be near impossible. You would have to make a vacant domain. Killing gods is hard enough when it just involves fighting the overpowered assholes but gods as a whole tend to jealously guard the means to kill them in the first place. Luckily, an idiot fell ass backwards into the role of Godhead."

"We are not going to kill Dinah." Amy said with finality.

"Of course not. But she isn't exactly rushing to fill in the open slots in her pantheon, is she? All that power, just lying around. It would be... unconscionable to let it fall into the wrong hands."

"And I suppose yours are the right hands?"

"Oh no. I would make a terrible goddess. I've spent centuries just soaking in hellish energies. Also, I have this habit of eating people. I would give myself about, say, 3 days before Dinah figures out how to cast me down."

"Don't eat people or souls. Ever."

"Yes Mistress." Editheis complied with a sigh.

"If Dinah would be able to stop me if I go overboard... If we did go with this crazy plan, what would we need to do?"

"Divinity requires three things. A vacant slot in the fabric of the universe, a seed of power and a strong soul. I wouldn't be surprised if others started spontaneously ascending now that Her Righteousness has opened the flood gates."

"That's a nightmare for another time. What would I even be the goddess of?"

"Well, the Godhead has four domains, mostly because she's a Greater God. Heroes, Carnage, Knowledge and Intuition. Those make a pretty scary combination, but that's upper tier divinity for you. Lady Skitter has Water, the Insignificant, and Endurance. She'll probably develop into a pretty popular goddess, especially with people trying to weather some hardship. Other than those, you basically have your pick of domains."

"The Insignificant?"

"Bugs, the overlooked, the kind of person that will never be more than a cog. Anyone that feels marginalized or used."

"That's... broad."

"It's a pretty powerful domain. Everyone feels small sometimes. Her other domains are pretty strong too. Can you imagine trying to kill something that conceptually shrugs off everything that should affect it? Especially if they're powered by the faith of everyone just trying to get by. And Water is water. Not even the Oceans or Seas. Just, fucking Water. All of it."

"Okay, I get it. They're really fucking strong."

"They're goddesses. They're supposed to be. When someone lays out the powers and abilities of a god, if anyone says, 'Eh, I can take them.' then they clearly don't have all the information."

"And you want me to stand up there, right beside them. With all that easily abused power?"

"It would certainly go a long way to making sure no one fucks with you."

"But do I deserve it?"

"Does anyone?"

"Dinah?"

"The insane child that impulsively resurrects whoever she wants? I'm honestly not sure if its her power messing with her head or if she legitimately has some disorder. All glory to the Godhead and all that, but that girl probably shouldn't have been let within fifty feet of real power."

"I feel like she would call that fair."

"Her honesty is refreshing."

"There has to be someone worthy of power."

"Of course there is. Mostly, it's people who don't ask for it, but rise to the occasion anyways."

"Seriously, what would I even be the goddess of?"

"There's one way to find out."

"We only have the vacancy and my soul. Where would we even get enough power to make me ascend?"

"We don't need that much. I did say 'A seed' not 'Power to equal a god's'. And I happen to be the daughter of Pandemos, who was daughter of Astarte, who was daughter of Ishtar. I'm certainly not using that little spark of fallen divinity."

"This is such a bad, stupid idea."

"There are no stupid ideas, Mistress. Only stupid people."

"Then I guess I'm a fucking idiot. Hit me."

Editheis grinned and placed her hand between Amy's breasts. What happened next was surprisingly quiet. Outwardly, a simple light passed from Editheis to Amy. Inwardly, however, was a different story. Like an engine starting for the first time, Amy's soul began to swirl and churn as Divinity moved into her. The power flooded her world and then doubled and doubled again until she felt herself pushing beyond the bounds of her body. It was a biological machine that created more of itself in defiance of all logic. It was a fire that burned so brightly that it created its own fuel. It was more than she could take and all that was contained within her spilling out. It lasted forever.

It was over in a second.

She had taken in a deep breath when Editheis touched her and she exhaled power as her lover drew the hand back.

"You're lesser. You didn't tell me what it would cost you."

"I am more for having you. I would give even more, if I could. You're spectacular." Editheis defended breathlessly.

"Still. You lied, Editheis." Amy pushed the demon onto her back and mounted her. "And lying deserves punishment."

"Oh? And this is punishment?"

"Well, I am the goddess of Love, Sex and Sacrifice."

"Oh, Mistress~<3!"


	17. Who Wants to Live Forever, Anyways?

The space between worlds is atemporal, so I fell, am falling and will continue to fall through that endless void forever. It was, is and will be super boring. At least I got a chance to rest my powers and reflect. Okay, let's start with killing all those dudes with lasers.

Suddenly, I exited the void and landed on hardwood floor. On my head.

"Son of a bitch! I am never going to get to introspect!" I rubbed the spot where my skull had impacted the floor. It would take a lot more force than the floor could survive to actually hurt me but I still felt comforted by the psychosomatic gesture.

"Ah. Hello. Who are you?"

I looked at the speaker. She was a thin, red headed, oriental woman dressed in simple office worker attire and sipping at a cup of tea. Her expression had a resting deadpan quality, which I immediately resolved to disrupt. She was sitting at a dinner table next to a modern kitchen. My senses spread outwards for a moment. The world had little of the tension that Taylor's world seemed intent on riding like the town bicycle. Blergh. Dimensional travel.

"Sup. I'm Dinah, but I'm thinking about changing the name. You?"

"Kobayashi. What happened?"

"Overexerted myself. Resurrected one too many people. Pushing too hard made me lose my grip on that reality, I guess. Being a multidimensional being has its downsides, apparently."

"Do you need-"

Whatever she was going to offer was drowned out by the front door of the apartment being smashed open. A blonde blur sped into the room at inhuman speeds and placed herself in between us. I had a moment to take in her maid outfit, horns and massive tail before she opened her fanged maw and unleashed a massive torrent of energy in my direction. I pulled up one of my stupid energy crosses and used it as a shield. Everything around and behind me exploded with the passing of the breath attack. If I was less durable, I would have baked even behind my shield.

The attack dissipated and I dropped my shield. The dust cleared and I got a better look at my attacker. She was a blonde, busty monstergirl. And there Kobayashi goes with the dope slap. Comedy-fantasy, then. Probably a bit of fan-service too, judging by the size of the dragon's boobs. I can work with this.

"Miss Kobayashi! That girl is a goddess! She's the enemy of all chaos monsters!"

"I don't care! No fighting in the house!"

Oh, this is fantastic. The incredibly powerful dragon girl sulked away from the redhead and began using magic to fix the catastrophic damage she had caused. I walked past her, privately adoring the way she bristled and glared at me as I sat across from her human.

"Hey! That's my chair!"

"Don't be rude, Tohru(familiarity)." My eye twitched a bit as I realized that my brain was translating Japanese for me. Just use -chan, you stupid grey lump.

"You ever thought about becoming a priestess? You've got the mediation part down already." I asked while watching Tohru out of the corner of my eye. My attentiveness was rewarded when all of her hair stood on end and she let out a low, dangerous hiss.

"Not really. I'm not very spiritual."

"That's fine. Some clerics are faithful, some are useful. But it's always your choice, and I don't mean to sound pushy. I am a guest, after all. How about you Tohru-san?"

"Eh?" Tohru emoted while pointing to herself.

"I'm kinda weird as far as deities go. All my domains are contradictory so I'm kind of limited as far as worshipers go. I've got Heroes and Carnage, although I tend to lean more towards Heroes cause they tend to be less assholish than mass murderers. Also Knowledge and Intuition but the first two are the important ones here."

"I'm not pledging myself to a dark goddess!" She cried as she fell into a ready stance.

"Okay." I allowed easily.

"You... What do you mean 'Okay'? Aren't you going to try and subjugate me for refusing? Where's your pride as a dark goddess?"

"Do you want me to subjugate you? I don't think I want a follower who's sexually attracted to me."

"Pfft!" Kobayashi chose the wrong moment to take a drink of her tea apparently. She turned to the side as she wiped her mouth.

"No! Miss Kobayashi is the only one for me!" The gregarious lizard pounced on the human, shoving her boobs into Kobayashi's face.

"Gah! Get off, Tohru!" I laughed earnestly at their antics.

"I'm home." A demure voice called from the ruined doorway. A young, horned girl walked into the room, thin tail waving gently behind her.

"Ah. Did you have a good day at school, Kanna(girl child, familiar)?"

"Yes." The little albino girl stared at me, a whiff of ozone in the air.

"This is Dinah(deity, respectful)." Okay, that was going to get old real fuckin' fast. "She... fell here. I guess."

"As good an explanation as what actually happened. I'll be out of your hair once I've had a breather. Sorry for imposing."

"It's no trouble. Would you like some tea? Kanna(girl child, familiar)? Do you want a snack while I'm up?"

The little dragon nodded, not breaking her glare. I attempted to resist the cute.

"Oh my god you are the cutest fucking thing I can't even."

I failed.

Her glare turned into a pout.

I failed harder.

"Do you have a preference on tea? We have jasmine and Earl Grey." Kobayashi asked with a gentle smile on her face.

"Jasmine, please." I answered from where I was hugging Kanna and dodging her flailing hands.

"Is this a love rival? A shameless older woman out to steal my Kanna?" A young girl with brown hair asked.

"Hello, Riko(girl child)." Kobayashi greeted easily. Kanna took advantage of my distraction to break free of my grip.

"Evil!" She declared from behind Riko.

"Muhahahahahah! Yes! I am the Evil Dark Goddess from Beyond Time and Space, Dinah, Goddess of Carnage! I'm here to steal all of your cutest dragons!" Riko gasped in surprise at my declaration.

"I knew it! You can't have Kanna!"

"Fool! The only possible way to stop me is for a valorous human to defeat me in a children's card game! Like a foolish fool, you don't even have a deck of cards with you!"

"No! I've failed even before I've begun!"

"I think I have a deck of playing cards somewhere. Ah. Here it is." Kobayashi dug around in one of her kitchen drawers and pulled out a classic bicycle deck.

"Curses! No matter, for I am a master of all card games! Make your choice of games and I will crush you all the same!"

"Then get ready to go fish!"

\------------------------------------------

"Do you have any..." She hesitated. The entire game hinged on this one guess. If she was correct, then I mathematically could not win. I stared at my remaining 4 and 8 cards. "Do you have any queens?"

"No! I have been defeated!" I quickly used magic to change the 8 to a queen. "Now I will be banished to the shadow realm! All I wanted was to cuddle cute dragon girls! Noooooooo!" I hammed it up as hard as I could as I slowly teleported myself back to my library.

"Truly, the greatest villains are the ones we see reflections of ourselves in." Was the last thing I heard from Kobayashi before I was gone.

In contrast to Kobayashi's apartment, my library was completely silent. I chuckled and walked as my powers guided me. They took me to a bookshelf and I pulled a book from it. I etched a message on the inside cover and dropped it through dimensions.

\-----------------------------------------

A book fell through a hole in reality and landed on Kobayashi's kitchen table. Tohru picked it up and read the cover. Her eyes went wide and her hands trembled as she opened the cover.

"Tohru-chan, what is it?" Kobayashi asked her maid.

"'Thanks for the hospitality, I had a blast. The Dark Goddess of Evil Darkness, Dinah. PS. I'll get you and your little dragon too!'" Tohru read aloud thickly.

"That's nice of her. What book is it?" For a moment, Tohru didn't answer. "Tohru?"

"The Philosopher's Stone and Other Secrets of Immortality. By R. Kobayashi." Tohru said, tears falling freely.


	18. The Wrath of God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning for dead children. And off screen child rape. And self cannibalism. And... Look, we're gonna earn that nsfw tag here.

I lounged on a chaise, reading some stupid fantasy novel as a golem fed me sweet green grapes. I had expended so much divine power recently that I didn't feel comfortable going out and facing the inevitable bullshit that would come my way. So I laid there, tossing and turning as I recuperated.

Alone.

I reread the same paragraph for the third time, the information failing to catch hold in my brain meats. I rubbed my eyes and willed the book away. I really shouldn't go out. I'm far too weak at the moment.

As I pulled a plain white shirt over my head, I tried to decide where to go. My first instinct was to go visit my daughter but I pulled back from that impulse. I could go anywhere! And I keep going to the same city, over and over?

There's a whole, wide world out there and I let my power guide me into it.

\----------------------------------

"I will never let my power guide me into a teleport again." I vowed as carrion birds scattered in response to my landing.

I found myself in a ditch filled with grey, rotting corpses. Young ones. Maybe 7 or 8 years old at most, and dozens of them. I held my hand over my nose in a vain attempt to keep the smell out and looked more closely at the nearest bodies. The male corpses were uniformly shaven with military buzz cuts while the girls all had neat bob cuts. Bruises and abrasions littered their bodies like they had been beaten severely. Fingers jutted out at awkward angles and were missing finger nails. I gently pulled open the mouth of a little blonde girl with glassy blue eyes. She was missing several back molars. Her thighs and sex organs were bruised in tell tale shapes.

Torture, then.

Someone had tortured, raped and killed... 43 children between the ages of 5 and 10 then dumped their bodies in a mass grave.

Clearly, someone wanted to die very, very badly.

As I fell deeply into my Carnage aspect, I resolved to oblige them.

I couldn't bring myself to crawl over those bodies, so I gently floated up and out of the ditch. The surrounding area was an ugly grey compound surrounded for miles on all sides by forest. Seven buildings and one of those large, rounded garages made for storing small planes. A concrete wall penned in the whole affair with manned guard towers at strategic spots. Ever so slightly better than human eye sight identified high powered rifles in the hands of white, clean shaven men. They hadn't noticed me yet. None of them were watching the corpse pit. They were so numb to their sins that it had just become another fact of life.

Six balls of brilliant hate pooled and solidified around me. I sent my cold, bright hatred streaking towards each of the towers to explode with terrible force. My fury spread from the towers to ignite the concrete walls into an impassible ring of holy fire. A dozen crosses appeared above the hangar and crashed down. Then they exploded with apocalyptic force. You know. For good measure.

With all of the escapes cut off... Oops! Knowledge identified a hidden tunnel, deep in the earth. I focused and could feel life forces fleeing through it. I fired a blast just a bit in front of them and held its form until it had penetrated the ground enough to explode in their faces. With that handled, I waited for the defenders to stream out of their pathetic little holes. A few guards took potshots at me with mundane rifles and I negligently vaporized them with flashes of destructive life force.

I was rewarded for my patience as costumed assholes in various themes of 'Nazi' began to assail me, mostly in pairs. A woman with prehensile hair that dripped some sort of acid leaped at me like a spider and was crushed just as easily. A swarm of shadowy monsters hid a silent assassin so well that I didn't notice his death when I blasted them and the master controlling the monsters in the same wide beam. A super scientist took three minutes to set up some kind of ludicrously large canon and I took three seconds to sabotage its power source with telekinesis, causing it to explode.

I killed and killed and killed. Their invectives and pleas and powers meant nothing to me. If their sins were not so great, I would not be here. And so I killed and so I killed in cyclical perpetuity.

The complex was crumpling and burning. Mangled bodies, bare bones and ashes littered the grounds. All transient proofs of Carnage's existence.

An asshole started slow clapping behind me and I fired a blast in its direction without looking. A laugh sounded out from my target and the life force did not extinguish. I turned to face him.

He was a thin, tall man with lank, dark hair. His suit was impeccable. A swirl of ink danced around him, gallons of the stuff.

"Good evening Miss Alcott! I am-" I fired another, stronger blast. It impacted his shield and was diverted to the side. "Ah. Yes. You have been noted to be quite rude. Quite like the youth today, to trample on propriety. I am Artist. The Artist, to be-" I fired another blast. "Exacting. You've made quite the mess of my plans here. Gesselshcaft was the largest source of capes in the world short of the CUI. But! A great man can adapt!"

I prepared to teleport a blast directly into his body through the use of my personal dimension, but felt a lurch in my chest, then another. The suited man raised a hand and the same inky liquid that surrounded him burst from my chest. My body fell, dead and desiccated, to the dusty earth. Curiously, I still existed. The artist smiled and pulled out a brush.

"Yes, I most certainly can adapt! The essence of a Goddess! What a wonderful consolation prize!" He swiped his brush through the ink, through me, sending orgasmic pleasure through my soul. He pulled my ink through the air, stretching me in delightful ways and shaping me into a shape pleasing to his eyes. Swipe and stretch, swipe and stretch. By the time he was done, I was a marvelous, beautiful mess. My new body was tall and willowy. I heaved, desperate for breath and it sent lovely ripples through my heavy breasts. Long hair fell like blonde curtains down to my wide hips. Delicate hands pressed to my racing heart.

"There we go, dear. I've done you a favor, made your life so much simpler, so thank me."

"Oh! Silly me! Thank yo-" He cut me off with a stinging slap across my cheek.

"You will refer to me as 'Master', Slut."

"Of course, Master. Thank you, Master!" He was taking time out of his day to instruct me! Could this get any better? He even gave me a new name! He slapped me again and my heart raced faster. His hands began to unbuckle his belt.

"Now thank me properly. You've just entered an exciting new career! You get to be my personal cum dump!" His turgid manhood flopped out of his pants. It did get better! I was so happy that it felt like my heart would burst from my chest! Actually, now that I think about it, my heart was kinda painfully fast. That's a bad thing, right? I felt a sharp cracking in my chest and I doubled over, grasping and the horrible pain.

"Master, I-"

Something burst from my chest, showering my Master in gore. I, my true self, emerged from my chest and looked down at me in disgust. I reached up to me, pleading with breathless lips to let me serve my master. I bent down and saw myself from two angles. My jaw opened, wider than any human's should and bit down on my disgustingly perfect face. My teeth caught on the edge of my jaw, clamped down and ripped upwards, tearing the jawbone clear of my face.

"H-how? I had you! You- you were mine! My art!" My master wailed. I spit out the jaw onto my still convulsing corpse.

I am me.

"Do not let mortal names distract you. If you meet Buddha on the road to enlightenment, kill the Buddha."

"What?" He took a step back, only to trip on the pants around his legs.

"If you meet Jesus Christ, kill Jesus Christ." I reached out to him.

"Stop!" His inky veil interposed itself, spinning so quickly that it ablated away my flesh. I pushed through anyways.

"If you meet the prophet Mohammed, kill the prophet. If you meet Moses, kill Moses." He tried to pull ink from my body but my skeletal, quickly regenerating hand was more than strong enough to crush his hand. He screamed and the ink swirled faster, severing my arm. I grew it back and threw my entire body through his veil.

"Please! Stop! Don't come any closer!" He wailed. "I'm like you! I'm a god! You can't kill me!"

My hands gripped his face and my bare skull stared deeply into his eyes.

"But Master, I haven't thanked you yet." My fingers slid into his head, bone and flesh powdering under my strength. His eyes were wide with terror and pain. "I have met God on the road to Nirvana, and she was me. And so, I devoured her. May your next life be less pathetic."

I looked up from the headless rapist and took in the gory, burning hellscape around me as the blood lust of my Carnage domain fell away.

"Well, my work is done here. Good job, me."

I teleported back to my library.

\-----------------------------------------------

"Dinah! I thought I sensed yo... What the fuck?" Taylor exclaimed as she took in my blood soaked, naked body.

"Don't worry, most of it is my blood. Kinda."


	19. Interlude 5. Greg Gaiden

The moment that his idyllic hometown had been destroyed in a horrible disaster and random monsters started attacking, Greg knew that his time had come!

Well, a few things were off... Brockton Bay could only be described as 'idyllic' with a heavy accompaniment of sarcasm. Also, Leviathan had already been brought to justice for the destruction. And Greg had to be rescued from the shelter he was buried in, so he couldn't start right away.

Still! Greg knew a call to adventure when he saw one! Pandora was clearly a JRPG style villain, delusions of godhood and all. Wasn't he the stark every-man, the powerless non-believer to rise to power? Pandora's evil machinations would be her undoing because Greg was going use those monsters to grind right up to the level cap and defeat the Goddess of Evil!

I'm really not-

All Greg needed to do was find the starting area. Some nice slimes or goblins to massacre en mass.

Know what? Sure. Go for it, Hero.

Greg gathered up his boots and bad ass katana that could totally cut through a tank, fuck you Sparky, and headed to the door.

"Mom! I'm going out to be an adventurer!"

"Have fun, baby! Stay away from the docks!"

"I know Mom! Bye!"

\---------------------------------------------------

Greg walked through the flooded streets of Brockton Bay with a spring in his step and thoughts whirling in his head. He had asked himself where he would be if he was a low level monster born of human misery. Unfortunately, the dentist's office was closed at the moment so he was headed to his second choice.

The Whitewall Park playground had miraculously survived Leviathan's attack mostly unharmed. Now the site of child merriment was infested with small monsters, a legacy of Pandora's terrible Evil. The abominations looked vaguely like the creatures from that super old movie gremlins, all twisted faces and gangly limbs. They crawled over the playground's installations and screamed in malevolent glee.

It is not my fault that some parents feel trapped by their crotch spawn! Don't pin those little shits on me!

Greg resolved to free the playground from tyranny for the sake of the children. Then he counted the monsters, about 35, and resolved to destroy the tyranny for the children one at a time.

He circled around the park, looking for an isolated monster. After a few moments, he found a lonely creature bashing a piece of bent pipe against a defenseless water fountain. Greg brandished his sword and creeped up behind the vandal. When he was within striking distance, he raised his mighty sword and brought it down to cleave the beast in half!

And missed by a mere 6 inches!

Sneak attack thus flubbed, the monster scurried away before turning to face Greg with a hiss and a baleful glare. Greg pulled his sword from the mud as the gremlin charged. He managed to wing the beast with a haphazard swipe but then it was in close. It sank its vicious little teeth into Greg's shin, causing him to yelp in pain. He tried valiantly to cut the monster off of his leg but his mighty sword was to long and mighty to strike the thing with any force. If only he had been facing a tank, his Nippon steel would have been the perfect tool!

The gremlin stated to tear at his leg with its claws and Greg felt panic start to seep in.

Your environment is a weapon. The thing that separates humans from beasts is a greater awareness of the uses of its surroundings. Well, humans and jumping spiders...

With a steel in his heart that Greg had never known before, he grabbed a hold on the beaten water fountain and slammed his leg into it, gremlin and all. Then again and again. The tiny devil fell off of him in a daze and Greg wasted no time in plunging his blade into the thing's center. It let loose a keening whine as it reached out to claw at Greg, desperate to cause harm even in death. Greg raised his injured leg and brought his steel-toed boot down on its head with a satisfying crack. Finally, the gremlin stopped moving.

Greg hissed and sat down to examine his leg. It was a lattice of deep scratches and the bite was ragged and freely bleeding.

"Shit. I don't even have access to cure yet." Greg lamented.

"Well, that could have gone better." A cheerful voice sounded out from behind him. Greg turned to face it, bent katana in hand. The speaker was a goatee'd man with a dozen knives of various type hanging from his belt.

"Johnny Depp? What are you doing in Brockton Bay?" The man smiled.

"You aren't the first person to make that mistake. Call me Jacob." Jacob offered a hand to help Greg up. The younger man hissed in pain as he put his weight on his lamed leg. "Gotta ask though, why kill that thing? They mostly just putz around and vandalize the park. Not exactly a priority target for a young cape."

"Oh, I'm not a cape, sir. But rumor has it you get stronger if you kill enough monsters and I want to be a Hero. I figured it was better to start small. Good thing I did. Can you imagine what would have happened to me if I had tried to take on anything stronger?"

"Vividly."

"I know, right?" Greg enthused, happy that the older man was understanding him. "I don't care if I have to grind one gremlin at a time to level 9999 like in Disgaea, I want to be the Hero this world deserves."

"Let me tell you a secret, kiddo." Jacob smiled, clearly happy at Greg's hot blooded declaration. "These gremlins, you called them, they have a special property. Every now and then, they leave behind a little piece of themselves, a heart. With a little bit of work, you can use it to make this."

Jacob pulled a vial out of his jacket and pulled out the cork stopper. He sat Greg down on a nearby park bench and poured the concoction over the open wound. Greg gasped as the liquid soaked into his injuries, closing them and ending the pain.

"That's amazing, Jacob! How did you figure this out?"

"I have a friend who's pretty good at making medicine. She deserves all the praise here."

"Man, this is amazing! I'd love to meet your friend! Do you think she could teach me how to make these?"

"She's a bit sick at the moment but I do have the recipe here with me." Jacob said with a small, sad smile. "I could be persuaded to part with it on one condition."

"What's that?" Greg asked, suddenly wary.

"Kill as many of these monsters as you can. Get as strong as you are able. And when you stand at the top of a mountain of corpses, remember the little guy. The guys who bend their swords in the mud and use a drinking fountain to eek out a win. The little girls who get hurt in a fight between water witches and lava spiders." Jacob handed Greg a piece of paper with instructions on it. Moved by the heartfelt words, Greg took it with a new fire in his eyes.

"I will, sir! Just watch, I'll be Superman and Legend and Captain Mal all rolled into one!"

"Good lad. And try a baseball bat next time. Bit easier to handle for beginners and a lot harder to destroy. Also, no one gives you shit for carrying it around in public."

It's good advice.

But... Nippon steel!

You don't exactly have to... *Sigh* cut a tank, do you?

True. Right tool for the right job. Greg looked down at his nobly sacrificed blade and resolved to switch back to katanas if he ever had to fight a tank. He turned back to Jacob to thank him for the advice, only to find the man gone. He had left as silently as he had arrived.

Truly, the man was a high level adventurer.

And so began the legend of the greatest Hero Earth Bet would ever know!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Not gonna lie, this one left me tickled.  
> AN from the future: Yeah, past me. Good work.


	20. Banter

"I want to yell at you but I'm painfully aware that I would be a massive hypocrite if I did." Taylor said while rubbing her eyes. She had held an unamused glare for long enough during my story that her face must have been awfully stiff. The blonde girl beside her gave an uneasy smirk.

"What were Lung's exact words? Something like 'Grr, I am an evil dragon. I command you, my minions, to hunt down and kill as many children as you can! Infants if you can find them.'"

"Shush you. I acted on the information I had. As stupid as it was, I stand by that choice." Taylor rebutted.

"For which, I am eternally grateful, hun."

"Know what I'm grateful for?" I interjected. "Strange girls in my soul introducing themselves. Also, showers."

"Sorry, sweetie. I'm Lisa, nice to meetcha." The girl in question offered as Taylor blasted me in the face with a jet of water just a bit harder than necessary. "I've been meaning to thank you. Coil, the guy who kidnapped you had me in a tight spot."

"Madame please! There are children present! Taylor, cover your innocent ears!" I exclaimed in my best 'flustered gentleman' voice.

"Har-de-har-har." Taylor deadpanned.

"Seriously though. You killing his mercenaries meant I had enough leeway to pry myself and about 35 million dollars out of his clutches. You know, like suing for emotional damage but neither of us have to pay a lawyer."

"Lisa."

"Fine. I stole it. I'm a thief. It is literally the job he quote, unquote hired me for. I'm not apologizing." The earlier unease started to fall away as she fell into the roll of 'playful badgirl' to Taylor's 'Disapproving dad friend' role. Mom friend? Whatev's.

"There's a story there but in the interest of moving the conversation along, what happened to... I already forgot his name. The pedophile guy you stole from." Lisa smiled at my contempt for our captor. Seems like disdain has a way of bringing people together.

"Short version, you busting out in the middle of the Leviathan fight made people look a whole lot closer at the Bay. Coil had a problematic power but it wasn't particularly suited to dealing with threats from multiple angles. He got taken down by Vista, of all people."

"I have no idea who that is." I offered mildly.

////////////////////////////////////////

"You have the right to remain silent, kid fucker." The policeman growled as he wrenched the villain's hand behind him and into cuffs.

"Lopez, not in front of Miss Vista."

"Sorry, chief. By all means." The officer gestured to the young heroine. She smiled.

"Don't mind if I do. You have the right to remain silent, you shit-stained cum-licker. Anything you say can and will be used to nail you're sorry ass to the fucking wall!" Vista shoved Coil's face into the roof of the cop car.

"Whoa, whoa! Where did this come from?" The chief exclaimed. "Don't hit his face. Go for the ribs. Less likely to get sympathy points from visible bruises."

"Thanks, Mr. Wilder!" Vista cheerfully complied.

////////////////////////////////////////

"Space manipulator on the Wards. Nice girl, you'd like her." Taylor offered.

"So, thanks for that. Being forced into villainy is no fun." Lisa said with a genuine smile.

"Much more fun to be a villain by choice, right?" I asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"Absolutely!" She smiled as Taylor glared. "I even get to be the legal kind of villain, now."

"A rich person?"

"See! She gets me!"

"I could have stayed in Equestria. I would have figured out what to do with the castle. It can't be that hard to fill it up with stuff." Taylor muttered.

"But then you wouldn't get to be with us when we inevitably fall into catty social positioning." I countered, trying not to smile as my daughter visibly shuddered a little. "Think of how fun it will be to watch us act like two wet cats in a bag."

"Stop tempting her to run away from her problems, Dinah."

"Speaking of avoiding problems, where's Amy? I felt her ascend as I fell through a crack in reality but she's not here. What's she the goddess of?"

"Sex, mostly." Taylor answered. "Also Love and Sacrifice but ever since people figured out that they can pray to us for blessings... Well, Sex is a lot more common than Love or Sacrifice. I can not tell you how many prayers I get from people trying to get through the work day without punching their boss in the throat."

"That's..."

"Specifically the throat. Why is it always the throat? And don't get me started on people trying to 'Resist temptations of the flesh'! Why do assholes need help to not be rapists? Earth Bet fucking sucks and I want to go hang out with ponies. Sure they live on a fucking hostile deathworld where every other life form is some flavor of giant monster but I never had to keep teachers from fucking twelve-year-olds! And stop praying for divine help on your goddamn diet, you petty shitheads!"

Lisa and I backed up a few steps while Taylor ranted. Maybe she really should take a Ponyland vacation.

"Suddenly, I'm very glad that my primary domains are pretty narrow."

"We need to have a talk about the shit scientists have got up to while under your blessings but, yeah." Taylor wound down with a sigh.

"Let's go get ice cream." I tried.

"What?"

"You need ice cream."

"She also wants ice cream." Lisa ratted me out.

"Sure. You've had... a day. Ice cream sounds good."

"Yay!"

"Get dressed first."

"Boo!"

\----------------------------------------------------

"You are dead to me." Lisa declared dramatically.

"Nuts have no place in ice cream, you bitch. They're hard and throw off the whole texture of the... dish? Yeah, dish works."

"That? That is straight up blasphemy. Rocky Road is God's gift to the world. The Abrahamic God."

"More like William Dreyer's curse on the culinary arts." I rebutted.

"That's under contention. Some asshole claims that he mixed a candy bar into his ice cream and inspired it."

"Who actually cares?"

"People in Great Depression era America."

"That's fair."

"Plus, I'm not taking this from someone who's eating... that." She pointed an accusatory spoon at my waffle bowl.

"At least strawberries don't crunch."

"It's still apple and pumpkin and chocolate. Why would you even think to try those together?"

"Girls, you're both very pretty. You can stop now." Taylor said as she attempted to keep her cone from dripping.

"Shut up, miss plain vanilla."

"Yeah. I actually really like plain vanilla but will continue deriding it because its funny." I stated with complete sincerity.

"You're both children."

"So you'll come rescue us if a mean dragon man attacks us?" I prodded.

"I'd rescue Lisa. You would probably just punt him into space."

"I'm honored. I'll offer up a prayer for the crotches of anyone who threatens me."

"It will be summarily ignored, sorry. Also, I don't do repeats if I can help it, so no more punting people into space. It was horribly unsatisfying anyways."

"Miss Alcott? Do you have a moment to talk?"

I turned to face the speaker, a giant mechanical dragon.

"Well, I'm not a princess and I might not count as a maiden anymore. Sure you want to kidnap me? It hasn't really worked out for others in the past. Also, Taylor only promised to let dragon men have a free shot at me. Bit sexist of her, really. Where did I go wrong with my daughter?"

"That's fine, Dinah. My name is Dragon and I'm a hero. No kidnapping, I promise."

"Someone actually introduced themselves without prompting!" I cried.

"Dinah."

"It's a Christmas miracle!" Dragon joined in with a laugh. Taylor sighed.

"What can I do for you?" I asked and the heroine turned serious.

"Do you... Remember the Simurgh?"


	21. The Angel of Small Death

"Nope. Which is par for the course, of course." I replied with a smile. "Also, we might want to do this somewhere else. Traffic."

Dragon glanced to her side and saw the wide eyed teen in a rusty blue car. He had his phone out and was pointing it at us. The massive mech let out an embarrassed chuckle.

"Probably a good idea. There's a park a few minutes from here. If you wouldn't mind following me, we can continue there."

At my nod of assent, Dragon rose gently into the sky and I followed after her. Beside me, Taylor formed a pane of water beneath her and Lisa's feet. When the pane rose began floating, Lisa stumbled and grabbed onto Taylor's shoulder for stability.

"Oh, I do not like this." The blonde groused as we left 'I could survive that fall' height.

"Relax, I've got you." Taylor reassured her.

"There is literally one millimeter of water between me and pancake town."

"Also me and Dragon too, probably." I interjected. "Also, pancake town sounds like the world's shittiest, most depressing diner. The kind where all the silverware is dirty and all the seat cushions are ripped. Also also, you're missing a perfect opportunity to princess carry your girlfriend, Taylor."

"She's not my girlfriend. I'm straight and she's asexual."

"So? You don't need to want to fuck each other to date."

"She's not my girlfriend." Lisa agreed. "I'm her sugar momma. I keep her in tea, books and friendly cuddles and in return she smites my enemies. Vengeance is so much nicer than sex, anyways. Well, less gross anyways. Plus, have you seen Taylor when she's all righteous fury and commanding? Rwowr! Completely platonic, but still, be still my heart!"

"Oh look, we're already at the park!" Taylor called out, a faint dusting of pink blush across her face and ears. "Now we can drop this conversation and never speak of it again!"

We set down an abandoned park, sending a small crowd of lizard monsters scattering like cockroaches. I took a couple potshots with low powered energy blasts, vaporizing a very small fraction of the fleeing swarm. A thought struck me.

"Speaking of segues, aren't you guys supposed to have secret identities or something?" I asked the girls that had just flown across town in their casual clothes.

"When I fought Bonesaw... Let's just say that while I can survive a stream of lava to the face, my costume did not. An asshole that I will hunt down and hurt, happened to get me naked on video then spread it online."

"If it makes you feel better, I've got a few programs that routinely search the web for that video then takes it down on counts of child pornography. There's been a fair few arrests, actually." Dragon helpfully offered.

"It does, actually. Thanks." Taylor said with a quizzical expression on her face, like she hadn't expected anyone to help her maintain her basic rights.

"And I'm retired." Lisa supplied. "While I may or may not bare a resemblance to a certain beautiful femme fatale, any lawyer worth his fee could get any case against me thrown out in a hot second. Any attempt to link me to a villainous persona would get dismissed as coincidental hearsay and with Coil going down, Tattletale, who I most certainly am not, has a better than even chance of getting off by pleading coercion."

"While the case wouldn't be quite so open and shut, she is mostly correct. It would be prudent to remember that non-tinker tech facial recognition software exist, Ms. Livsey." Dragon warned.

"Ew! Dead names! Please, call me Lisa."

"Dead name?" Taylor prompted with a raised eyebrow.

"A slang term for a transgender person's original name." Dragon explained.

"Right. Sarah Livsey was an oblivious bitch who let her brother die and her parents use her. Even if I wasn't hiding from them, I wouldn't go back to that name, to being that person."

"Lisa..." Taylor put an arm around her obvious girlfriend. Lisa rolled her eyes but didn't move away from the embrace.

"It's fine. But we're not here to talk about me. Who's the Simurgh."

"Right." Dragon agreed. "I try to keep an eye on all the S-class threats that I can. I have detailed files on all of them and certain warning systems in place to give us warnings about aberrant behavior or movements."

"They said you were the one who gave us the warning that Leviathan was attacking, right?" Taylor asked.

"Yes. It was a joint project with Armsmaster. Even without Dinah's intervention, the extra warning had a significant effect on the collateral casualties." Simple pride at reducing human suffering colored Dragon's tone. "The problem is that there is a third Endbringer and the systems I had in place to watch it were sabotaged."

"There's a third?" Taylor exclaimed.

"Yes. What's worse is that she appeared in 2002."

"Why haven't we ever heard of it. Her? Is she dormant or something?" Lisa asked with a hushed voice.

"No. She attacked for the first time a few months after she appeared in the sky over Switzerland and has been in the rotation ever since. She was the perpetrator of the attack on Canberra before Leviathan attack here."

"'Do you remember...' Something is making us forget about an Endbringer? Is... Is it a response to one of their own dying?" Lisa bit her lip and cuddled further into Taylor's embrace.

"I was hoping you might have an answer, Dinah." Dragon admitted. "There was a chance, since you were outside of reality, that the effect that made everyone forget might have missed you."

"Still might have. Me not remembering something means very little. And how did you know I was in another dimension?"

"That was me." Taylor raised a sheepish hand. "People have been pestering me to get in contact with you for the entire month you were gone. I may have blown up at Alexandria and told her that if she wanted to talk to you, she could throw herself through an interdemensional portal to go looking."

"Alexandria is the grumpy one, right?" Taylor nodded. "Don't worry about it. If people are bothering you, tell them to go away. They aren't considering your feelings so feel free to ignore theirs."

"Yeah. I'm not going to let people walk over me. I've learned that lesson."

"Either way. I may not remember the big scary monster but that never stopped me from knowing shit before. Give me a second to pull something out my ass."

I closed my eyes and focused on the Simurgh. Of course, asking myself for answers had gotten no less stupid.

"Wanna know the way to your man's heart? Murder the shit out of his abusive father." My oversoul vomited into my brain.

"She's in Montreal, killing her boyfriend's dad. Some asshole named Heartbreaker."

"That's... What? Why?"

"Working on it."

"Imma scary monster! Rawr!"

"She was trying to avoid being destroyed by me or someone I've empowered." I translated.

"Lil' Zizzy went black and never went back."

"She merged her core with a Super villain named Imp who has the power to make people forget her. Makes her imperceptible. Huh. She's actually one of your old teammates."

"Wait. An Endbringer is killing Heartbreaker because she has a crush on Regent?" Lisa asked incredulously.

"Shush. I'm almost done."

"She can see the future!"

"She's running around, heading off problems before they happen. That's actually quite nice of her."

"So we have a teenager running around with the power of a city killing monster." Dragon's expressive mechanical face blinked and looked at Taylor and me. "Another one, anyways. Still, I was expecting much worse than offering up super villains to her boyfriend the way a cat gives its owner mice."

"Like I said, better than sex." Lisa provided smugly.

"I have to admit, as far as survival strategies go, making everyone forget you exist is a damn good one. If Imp has anywhere near my durability, there's not a lot that can hurt her." Taylor deflected.

"And anything that could, she'll see coming. Luckily for the world at large, she's more concerned with French-Canadian booty and pranks." I concluded.

"Well that's a major relief. I can't tell you how worried this has been making me." Dragon confided.

"If it makes you feel better, her power doesn't effect recordings of her and her various cognition powers don't work within a minute of the present. You should be able to track her with cameras. Granted, her TK can smash cameras or fiddle with 'em but that's an Endbringer for you."

"Thank you. As terrifying as Imp is now, having some way to interact with her will be helpful."

"No problem. Good luck with that. You'll need it." I said sincerely.

"Now I'm afraid you're under arrest." Dragon weakly stated.

"Pardon?"

"You released hostile self propagating monsters on the general public. I've been ordered to arrest you. Sorry."

"I mean, no? You kind of can't hold me. Even if you could somehow prevent me from simply teleporting away, this isn't even the real me. I can literally make this body cease to exist and then create a new one somewhere else."

"You can't arrest a projection." Lisa said with a sly grin sliding into place. "You need to arrest the master."

"That's... technically true. But you do understand that you are under arrest, though?"

"Sure." I agreed readily. "If you want to try and detain a multidementional conceptual ball composed of all human knowledge, I will not stop you." Dragon gave me a long, considering look.

"...I'll keep that in mind. Have a nice day, Ms. Alcott. Thank you again for all your help." The massive machine rose into the air and blasted off across the skyline.

"Okay, I know what she actually said, but why did that sound like 'Challenge Accepted.'?"


	22. Don't Be Nice

"You've set up an adventurers guild." I accused.

"It's not like I meant to." Danny excused himself. "So many places in the bay have sordid histories and we had a bunch of out of work guys in the dock workers union. A few of us had already been killing the little gribblies running around so we started pooling knowledge and one thing led to another..."

"You have the cliche quest board. With bounties and shit. You even have a fucking leader board."

"Those were Annette's ideas. I don't think I can thank you enough for that, not in a thousand lifetimes."

"You really can't. I am, after all, a priceless treasure that kings would ransom their realms for." My co-mom preened. "But, yeah. If we're going to be doing a public good and risking life and limb, we aren't doing it for free. Government grants are a wonderful thing. And gamifying hunts are just the natural progression of the literal game mechanics inherent in the monsters themselves."

"You say that like you went begging a senator for spare change, dear."

"You're right again, my love. I should be proud of convincing half of Washington that giving me millions of dollars to form a grassroots militia loyal to no one but me was a good idea."

"I'd be terrified if I wasn't so turned on."

"Dad!" Taylor shrieked.

"Don't worry, everyone's parents are fucking more than their children would like to think about." Lisa consoled. Poorly, it seemed, judging by Taylor's glare.

"Don't worry," I parroted. "I promise that I won't be doing the sex. I'll die as virginal as a catholic priest."

"Because rape doesn't count."

"Damnit Lisa! Don't explain the joke!"

"You're all awful." Taylor rolled her eyes but couldn't quiet hold down a smirk.

"Gasp! She can smile! And all it took was a Catholic rape joke. Quick, we need to pound that joke harder than an alter boy!" I poked her lightly in the ribs and she swatted my hand away.

"Shush, you. Just for that, we're going to talk about serious things now."

"Noooooo!" I cried dramatically as I clung to her arm like a limpet. "I'm allergic to seriousness! I break out in plot advancement and action scenes. Let's just wallow in conversation and jokes forever."

"We'll play a game of super power Scrabble with you." Lisa offered. I waved my hand in front of my face.

"Alright. What needs to die?" I asked with an exaggerated determination scowl. Danny quirked an eyebrow.

"Why Scrabble of all things?" He asked.

"It's time to D-d-d-d-duel!"

"I would have been the goddess of Games if I hadn't murdered my way out of Coil's pedo basement." I scrunched my nose up as I said that. "But that would have been awesome! Games is a way better domain than Carnage! We need a time traveler so we can go back and have me not kill all those guys. Me dammit! Who knew that slaughtering tons of people who had no realistic way of harming me could backfire so completely?"

"Holy crap. She's actually serious." Lisa said with a dead tone.

"What?" Taylor asked.

"She actually believes that games are more important than the lives of the mercenaries she killed."

"Well, duh. They were willing to shoot lasers at a little girl. Either they thought they could hurt me, in which case they were evil assholes that needed smiting or they didn't think that and they knowingly attacked an invincible opponent. Which is dumb. Like, suicidally dumb. Throwing yourself in a meat grinder dumb. I can't weep for stupid or I would never stop."

"She's not wrong." Taylor sighed. "Or, I at least kinda get where she's coming from. There's making a stand and then there's tying yourself to a tree in a hurricane to prove how tough you are. No one blames the hurricane when you get a street sign through your chest."

"That... is an oddly specific example. Should I ask?" Annette chimed in.

"It's pretty self explanatory. The Endurance domain sucks if only because I am acutely aware of the stupid shit people subject themselves to in the name of one thing or another. Back to the point, it's also kind of hard to argue against killing people willing to turn lethal weapons on you en mass."

"Or pedophile Nazis." I said.

"Or pedophile Nazis." Taylor agreed with a sigh.

"Or the mortal shell of gods that try to mind control you."

"That... is a pretty narrow example."

"Or debt collectors who make peoples lives hell by trying to squeeze blood from a stone."

"Dinah. No."

"Or people who do dog fighting."

"Well... Rachel would agree."

"Or jerks who don't wipe their sweat off the gym equipment."

"You don't even go to... You're fucking with me."

"Yeah. Dog fighters do deserve to get dick punched daily for every puppy they've killed, though."

"You are forbidden from meeting Rachel."

"Keep on target girls." Annette prompted. "We do actually have things to do."

"Fiiiiine. Lay it on me, sexy shoulders."

"The ABB used to run a lot of human trafficking through the bay but one of the shipping containers full of women meant for their brothels got lost in the shuffle a few years ago. No one found it until the smell of the corpses alerted authorities. Now there's a giant metal dragon abomination thing that's immune to anything we've thrown at it stalking the docks. See, Taylor? Three sentences and I didn't even get side tracked by the weird compliment."

"That is both depressing metal as fuck and I can't help at all. Neither can Taylor. Sorry."

"Wait, why can't I help?"

"Humor me for a sec. More than you usually do. Annette, try asking Taylor for help directly." I commanded with no humor.

"Alright. Taylor, please help us kill the bone dragon thing."

Taylor opened her mouth to agree but her throat seized and no sound came. Her eyes widened in momentary panic.

"Okay, what the fuck was that?" She asked.

"The terms of the contract. Way back when, I warned you, both of you that if I interfered, the scales would be balanced with a new threat that I couldn't touch. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Metaphysical actions... Well, how do you balance one life against another? One existential threat against another? It gets weird and twisty but everything eventually resets back to zero." I leaned back in my chair, eyes scanning the former union building's tile ceiling. "Human Misery is a human matter. The gods can never interfere."

"Is it pointless then? Nothing ever gets better no matter what?" As Taylor's voice rose, I could feel the moisture in the air vibrate. I met her eyes and leaned forward.

"It's never pointless, Goddess of Endurance. The Endbringers were, are invincible. At the time I gave you Leviathan's core, there were about seven powers that could actually harm the near-singularities that made up their cores. In ideal conditions. Without the beasts fighting back. Or mentioning the Simurgh's ludicrous precognition. I don't think I can understate how deeply humanity was screwed. Look inside yourself and ask the question; 'How easily can I kill cities? Nations? Continents?'"

The collected humans around us tensed as our conversation touched on their frailty but Taylor relaxed. No, deflated was a better descriptor. We both knew that the answer to all of those questions was 'Nearly effortlessly'. I continued on.

"The monsters, Miseries, are endless and, on occasion, difficult but they are not invincible. Take the Bone Dragon. It was born from the suffering of those women and is shaped by the way they viewed the threats that assailed them. Lung, the dragon that walked as a man held them as securely as the metal walls that eventually killed them, so the beast is a dragon of unbreakable steel. They were taken and dragged into the night to die, so it takes and drags into the night to kill. They died alone and forgotten, so it haunts the forgotten places. Lung the invincible was untouched by the laws of normal men so the monster is untouched by normal weapons."

"But Lung wasn't invincible. We took him down."

"Capes took him down." I pointed out.

"So we have to fight the dragon with capes?" My daughter's companion interrupted my lesson. I felt a tinge of irritation and the urge to erase its source but let her speak. She falls very firmly within a portion of myself, after all. "No, normal people couldn't fight Lung so normal weapons don't harm the dragon. That means we need abnormal weapons? You have something for-"

Ah. She finally noticed my annoyance and froze. How very oblivious mortals can be. I continued.

"As gods, we can not directly interfere. However..." I materialized a primer on enchantment from my library and dropped it on a table with a hearty thump. "We can teach. We can bless. We can empower the worthy. Your mortal friend here would find no trouble entering either of our services as a priestess. We can give them the tools but we can't do the work for them."

With my piece said, I took a breathe and released the power within myself.

"See? Allergic to seriousness. Sorry about the whole 'Thinks of you as a transient speck' thing, Lisa. Knowledge-me is kind of a bitch."

"It's fine." It wasn't.

"I should go visit Amy. I have this vague sense of responsibility to make sure she's doing alright."

No one stopped me from leaving.


	23. Interlude The way that the story will continue from this point on! 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have assumed direct control! Let the Orgies commence! Yes it needs capitalization!

Brian read the terrifying little note once again.

'Hey bro! You don't remember me cuz of my super awesome power but I'm your sister. You've been working your ass off as a villain to help get me out of mom's place but then I got powers and then I ate (out) an endbringer (Sexually!) and got even more powers. Now its my turn to take care of you, dorkwad! I know you kinda had a thing going with little skitty-titties but tattles totally ntr-ed you but dont worry! I got you covered like the awesome sister I am! I hope you like em chubby! JK, I used my powers to cheat and know youll like her! Remember to wear a condom! Seriously!'

There was so much here to unpack that he wanted nothing to do with but he couldn't ignore the vague... threat? Promise? The point was that someone knew his secret identity. With how hot the Bay had gotten over the past couple weeks, he couldn't afford to draw attention to himself. Brian was good but he wasn't 'Half the Protectorate is on a manhunt for a psycho goddess' good. Things had been going so well since the boss got taken down too...

He turned the key to the door of his safe house, the one that even Lisa didn't know about and stepped inside.

"Hey there, big boy." A sultry voice said from the bed in the center of the room. "How likely am I to be eaten by a grue?"

Brian's heart skipped a beat but he couldn't tell if it was from arousal or fear. On his bed was a woman with more curves than a mountain road and the largest breasts he'd ever seen barely held in place by a sheer negligee. She twirled her bubblegum pink hair as her equally pink tail lazily swayed and twitched.

'Wait, what?'

"They thought it was a joke. A one off gag. Now that Helpless has abandoned the thread, we'll see who's gagging!" She stood up from the bed and sashayed towards him as she spoke complete nonsense. She pressed the full length of her body against Brian. "Me. I'm going to be gagging. On your cock."

"Lady, I don't know who you are or who you think I am-"

"I'm Pinkie Pie. You're Brian. A little birdie told me you like women that come on strong. Now fuck me." She whispered the command into his ear as she ground her body into his. The firmness of her attitude and the softness of her body were doing things to Brian's cognitive functions but the strangeness of the situation compelled him to push her away. He slipped out from beneath her and stepped back for some space.

"This is- Is this about that note? I don't know what they paid you but I don't need an... escort. Really." He insisted. The woman tittered.

"Oh no. I'm not a working girl. I'm actually a baker by trade. How'd you think I got these curves?" She drew a finger down her body, drawing his eyes to dangerous places. "All I want is to see you smile!" She stated cheerfully.

"That's-"

"And your dick inside me. I want that too!" The unhinged loon pounced, actually bodily pounced on him, sending them both tumbling to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Instinct took over and Brian wrestled his attacker to the ground. The next thing he knew, Pinkie was beneath him and giving him a knowing grin. A distracted part of his brain noted how her heaving breath did interesting things to her chest. For a long moment, he looked down at her. He was holding her wrists together above her head and was straddling her waist. His face was inches away from hers.

She was completely trapped.

Helpless.

He could, theoretically, do anything to-

"For the love of parties, just kiss me already!"

She rose up against him and pushed her lips against his. He knew it was a bad idea but he still kissed back, his tongue wrestling with hers in a lurid competition. His free hand found its way to up her side and to her chest. She purred appreciatively as he roughly kneaded her breast through the thin fabric of her lingerie.

"Like them?" She murmured against his mouth. He squeezed her tit a bit harder. "Then why don't you fuck them?"

Who the fuck was this girl?

"Fine. Have it your way." Brian assented as he ripped her night clothes. Her pert, lovely breasts spilled out of the ruined cloth and he took a moment to appreciate sight. Pinkie saw his hungry appraisal and couldn't help but bite her bottom lip in anticipation. Brian stood up and a moment's work saw his jeans and boxers thrown across the room. His stiffening length revealed, he kneeled back down over her chest.

He ran his hands over her boobs slowly, almost reverentially, before he pressed them together and thrust his manhood between them. Pleasing ripples spread across her flesh every time he thrust. It was warm and soft, but it wasn't quite enough. That is, until she began to make a game of licking his tip every time it emerged from between her bust. Heat built inside him until he noticed Pinkie furiously fingering herself as he used her tits. The wanton sight tipped him over the edge and his orgasm exploded all over her face and chest. Panting, he watched with barely contained lust as she worked herself to her own climax beneath him.

By the time her back finished arching, Brian moved down and lined himself up with her entrance. He was still a bit soft from cumming so recently, but when has that ever stopped a truly determined man?

"I have been waiting for this for six months. Fuck me up!" She commanded and he complied.

Tight, warm, inviting. Her depths were every adjective used to describe womanhood and more. Her legs locked behind his back and her hips rolled with his thrusts.

There was nothing between them except the heat.

Again and again he pushed into her with little variations in angle and depth making her coo and gasp. All the stress and pain and despair accumulated over the hellish month past drained from his mind as he lost himself in the act of turning this strange, beautiful woman below him into a quivering puddle. When he could take no more, he thrust as deeply as he could into her and released what felt like his entire soul within her.

Exhausted from the frantic sex, he collapsed against her tender flesh. His eyes felt heavy against the burning heat of her body and he felt himself begin to drift inexorably towards sleep.

Before he fell, he heard her mumble "Totally worth the wait..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PN: I have taken control! This thread shall only be smut and parties!


	24. Well I Guess All This Happened

I grumbled and gesticulated wildly as I trudged down the street.

"Stupid drama, always ruining a good time. Stupid unknowable divinities, all mysterious and shit. All I want to do is laze around and shoot the shit and maybe hit on my co-mom cause I know she'll take it in stride and maybe laugh a bit but noooooooo..." I kicked a nearby can so hard it evaporated in a plume of heat. "Why must my actions have consequences!"

"It'd be a mighty strange world if they didn't."

"Oh man, can you imagine? It'd be like some weird proto-dimension where causality is shattered. Hi, Jack. How've you been?" The swarthy pirate man gave me a grin that was supposed to be somewhere around rakish but only managed a firm shit-eating as he fell into my pace beside me.

"You know how it is, Pandora. Running around, killing things, teaching other people how to kill things, running away when I inevitably find something I can't kill. The usual."

"The old adventurer's grind." I nodded sagely. "If you need a bit of divine inspiration, don't hesitate to pray. You've got a lot of potential in you."

"Never been too pious, really. Too many commandments and all that." Jack offered casually.

"Most of that is social engineering. Or beginner's philosophy. The average person doesn't usually have the time or the inclination to really get into the weeds of why lying objectifies the person you're lying to or how killing harms society as a whole as much as the individual. So religion tells people 'Don't lie or kill because God said so.' as a sort of educational band-aid to keep society functioning."

"Aren't you a goddess?" He asked quizzically. "Isn't this undermining your own authority?"

"Ha! No. I'm the Goddess of Knowledge. I'm literally telling you 'Stop being lazy and go investigate yourself.' If you keep to the core tenets of just about any religion, you'll be fine. It usually boils down to 'Don't be a dick.' It's why you see so many convicts find God and get their act together. Well, there are a lot of reasons that happens, almost nothing has a singular reason it happens, but I am never not digressing." I paused for a moment as I tried to find the dropped thread of conversation. "Point is, I'm not the most spiritual of spiritual figures. Just help people out of tough spots and I'm content to have my oversoul throw healing spells at you. Bonus points if the the person you're helping is of the 'Lost and Forgotten by Society' type."

"So what you're saying is-" Jack was cut off by the sudden opening of a portal in the air in front of us. A warm ocean breeze accompanied a tanned beauty in a two piece, dolphin print bikini and an out of place fedora as she stepped out and walked purposefully up to Jack. I gripped my power to come to my friend's defense but relaxed a bit as she merely slapped him full across the face.

"That was for William." I winced. Being a handsome gay pirate must come with a few broken hearts, after all.

"Lady, I don't know-" She interrupted him with another slap.

"And that one was for Hiro."

"I didn't even-" Jack let out a little wheezing cough slash groan noise as he clutched his abused groin.

"That one was for Riley." Jeeze. Maybe more people were into the gay pirate thing than I gave Jack credit for.

"Okay, I probably deserved that one." Counter to his words, Jack took a sudden swing at the woman. Rather than getting caught with a sucker punch, she turned his movement around like a kung-fu movie master and maneuvered him into a head lock that used his own arm as leverage. When she was fully in control of his movements, she began to march him into the portal she appeared from.

"Now its time to answer for your sins, chief of which is interrupting my long, long deserved vacation with your stupid, petty bullshit and don't even try to talk your way out of this you shit-eating, discount Joker! No amount of plot armor will save you this time."

"Dinah, help! She's going to kill me!"

"Sorry, Jack. You might want to try praying to Amy for this one." I waved at Jack's horror filled expression as the portal closed. Oh well, its just the friend of a few jilted ex's, she probably wouldn't be too hard on him. Jack was a pretty nice guy after all so they could probably talk it out. Who knows, maybe with enough prayers to Gayphrodite they could figure out a Tenshi ending.

'Note to self, call Amy Gayphrodite to her face.'

Noted!

I began to walk down the street, visions of mildly amusing nicknames in my head. Do I want to be the kind of person who has a vaguely insulting pet name for everyone? Yes. Yes, I do.

'Alright, so Taylor's things are bugs, water and ponies. Wavelor? No. Haylor, a pun on Hay? Nah, too low impact. Neighlor? Only when she's being negative for the triple pun, then I'll say her neigh.'

I was so absorbed in my thoughts, I didn't notice that I had meandered into the bad part of town. Not that I would have cared, being afraid of a mugger would have been just plain insulting to the people I had killed with nary a nervous twinge of the bowels.

"Hey there, girly. Whatchu doin' wanderin' down here all alone?"

I immediately began to act surprised and skittish. Fuck those guys I killed.

"I-I was just on my way to my friend's. House, um, I was going to her house. But I guess I'm a little lost..." A young man, probably no older than 20 years old grinned as he took in my display, hook, line and sinker. He took a step forward. I took a step back and bumped into his friend. I did my best mouse impersonation.

"We were just havin' a party near here. Why don't you come and have a little fun with us?" The friend said, his voice like oil.

"But I'm not allowed to go to parties." I had to stop myself from calling him 'mistah' or pitching my voice up to Shirley Temple levels. Going over the top would give it away. Start with just a little absurdity. "My mom said I made a class 4 party foul."

"Well, that's the great thing about our friends. We won't tell anyone if you don't."

"Well, if you're sure its worth the risk..."

"Of course we're sure. Just follow us, babe." The first guy awkwardly placed his arm around my shoulders and began to walk me into a dark rape-alley. I began sending telepathic instructions to Rose Quartz to set up the joke.

Surprisingly, they did actually lead me to a party. Unsurprisingly, it was also a shitty meth house filled with strung out gang members and obnoxious club music. People in various states of intoxication and undress mingled and lounged throughout the smokey house doing... a whole lot of nothing. If I had actually been there for a party, I would have been incredibly disappointed. Assuming I actually liked parties. Or wanted to be around masses of people I didn't know. Look, a lot of things would have to be different for this sort of thing to be my scene. A topless girl with little x's of tape over her nipples handed me a beer.

"Take a few sips. You'll relax." Dude #1 promised. I complied.

'Yup, That's ecstasy. Yup, I still don't have a standard biology for it to affect.' I took a few more sips to sell the illusion.

My guides led me through the throngs of revelers to a quieter back room. Inside was a couch and on it was a man in a mask with some truly horrendous teeth giving sparse attention to two women in sparing clothing as they slowly nuzzled him.

"Hey, Skids. We found a little lost lamb and thought she could use some of the good stuff for her first time here." Without taking his eyes off the girls crawling over him, the masked man reached into a pocket of his leather pants and pulled out a syringe and tossed it to one of my escorts.

"I don't think this is a good idea..." The hand on my shoulder tightened. It would have been on the edge of painful if I wasn't, y'know, in literally zero danger.

"Bit too far to back out now, girly. Don't worry, first one's free." He pulled the cap off the needle grabbed my arm.

"No, I mean they're going to know I'm here!" That made them pause.

"Who?"

I opened my mouth to answer but was cut off by a nearby wall exploding inwards.

"Freeze, scumbags! Party Patrol!" Rose yelled. She was dressed in a stripper's rendition of police uniform, complete with fuzzy handcuffs. Leena, decked out in fake mouse ears and a leotard, jumped down from Rose's shoulder with an acrobatic flip.

"Oh, no!" I cried.

"Oh, yeah!" Leena contradicted. "Selma Black, a class four party foul means you're banned for life from all parties taking place in the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies by decree of the Lords of Levity! We're taking you down, Party Pooper!"

"You pigs will never take me alive!" I screamed as I grabbed the masked man by the throat and put him in between them and me. "You bastards don't have the guts to-!"

Rose lowered her smoking gun and gave the barrel a theatrical blow. Leena picked up my unresiting body and placed me over her shoulder with a casual ease despite her slight frame.

"Good work, partner. This one will be languishing in the Disco Dungeons for a long, long time. Three to beam out!" I teleported the three of us to my library with a cheesy, 80's-esque flash of light. After a few moments, we all burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

\--------------------

Unbeknownst to we laughing fools, Skidmark stared at his equally shell shocked underlings and voiced their collective emotions.

"What the actual fuck?"


	25. Interlude...6? Let's go with 6.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What about that time Brian got me pregnant with triplets?"
> 
> We are completely ignoring that. Don't make me delete that post.
> 
> "Can't hear you over how many birthday parties I'm planning!"
> 
> Just for that, the title for this one is:
> 
> Liar's Party (That Pinkie Isn't Invited To["The News Is Boring Anyways!'])

Jeffery Thompson took a deep breath to still and center himself as the count down to live reduced to silent fingers. He could see the faces of his interviewees settle into their own carefully crafted images through the teleconference monitors.

This segment would cement him as one of the greats.

"Welcome back. We have for you today, as promised, a very special interview. Even after more than thirty years, society is still changing, still adapting to the presence of Parahumans, people with spectacular powers capable of wonderful miracles and horrible depredations. Now, humanity is being pressed to adapt to the fantastical again. Two strange new methods of gathering personal power have appeared and the public is left asking the questions, 'How do we deal with this? How do we keep ourselves safe?' Joining us today to answer those questions we have Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown of the PRT and the Head of the new Hunter's Guild of Brockton Bay, Annette Hebert. Also joining us is one Miss Editheis. However, I'm afraid that you might have to introduce who and exactly what you are to our viewers."

"Well, Jeffery, the short answer to that is that I am a ex-demon, specifically a succubus, born from the depths of the Abrahamic hell." The horned woman smiled coyly. "The long answer, however, is that I'm a dimensional, non-human alien. My home dimension is rife all manner of supernatural beasties but the most important part is that it is also home to a number of sub-dimensions ruled by various entities even the most skeptical of minds would have to call gods. My mother, Aphrodite Pandemos, was one such creature until Yahweh took control of the more pleasant sub-dimensions, collectively called 'The Heavens', and banished all other contenders to his rule. A demon is really just a god or demigod cut off from their conceptual sustenance, which we were in the lower realms, and so from the fallen gods, demons like myself were born, harsher and crueler for our barren surroundings."

"I imagine that a succubus exists on lust, then?" Jeffery prompted.

"Lust, love, affection... I once had a sister that categorically refused to harm a living being and subsisted entirely on hugs and cuddles. Poor thing was erased from existence by a particularly zealous angel."

"So you're a good demon, oppressed by the forces of light?" He asked, skepticism clear in his voice.

"Oh my, no." She tittered. "I was a horrendous monster. My official title was the 'Queen of Lust'. In retribution for killing my sister, I used my powers to make that same angel rape and eat an entire convent of nuns. When my influence over him faded, he committed suicide by way of charging directly into hell with no back-up. I have stories like that all throughout my nine centuries of life, with both more and less valid motivations. If any other member of my former species attempts to claim a foothold in this reality... Well, I would probably offload the work to either Lady Taylor or the Godhead herself, but the point is I would take steps to make sure that the creature was destroyed as swiftly as possible."

Jeffery froze, very carefully not reacting to the nonchalant admission of almost comically over the top evil. Maintaining his professionalism, he moved on without reacting.

"You mentioned it was your former race. How did you..."

"Transmigrate? I suppose that dovetails rather nicely into why we're here. Your reality is... awakening, so to speak. The catalyst was the appearance of the Godhead. I believe the PRT refers to her as Pandora, but she would introduce herself as 'Dinah, but I'm thinking about changing the name.' I was summoned here by my darling Amelia quite by accident and immediately fell deeply in love. I recognized the shifting nature of your world and sacrificed my power to enable Amy's ascension. Doing so connected me to a near limitless source of love, something I draw power from, and I changed to match that power. The only physical difference between a demon and an angel is a god's love, after all."

"I see." He really, really didn't. "We, the people of Earth Bet that is, have had parahumans claiming to be gods before. Before his disappearance, Scionism was the seventh most practiced religion. What is the difference between your goddess and a normal parahuman?"

"I can actually answer that." Costa-Brown interrupted. "Several 'Divinities' have made themselves known around the world and they have a few commonalities that we've been able to pinpoint. Whereas parahumans often have one or two powers and then a myriad of uses from that power, divinities have one or two themes and then a myriad of powers relating to those themes. There is also the fact that divinities are an order of magnitude or two stronger than your average cape. For example, Kaiser of the gang Empire 88 can create a field of swords from any metal surface but a theoretical god of swords would be able to create them, wield them like a lifelong master and then also bestow them with powers of their own."

"You've referred to them both here and in your press release last week as 'Divinities'. Has the government officially acknowledged these people as literal gods?"

"That is something of a point of contention. As always, the United States government abstains from any religious or secular debates. All citizens are free under the constitution to peacefully worship whoever they see fit, as they see fit. However, the class of people we have dubbed as 'Divines' quite literally embody specific concepts, control things related to those concepts and actively answer the prayers of people struggling with some aspect of those concepts. Pandora, for all her faults, resurrected almost half of an entire city's population. Mrs. Hebert's daughter has been recorded simultaneously saving the crew of a sinking fishing boat off of the coast of India with her hydrokinesis and having lunch at a restaurant in Brockton Bay. At some point, you have to call a spade a spade."

"A salient point." Jeffery conceded. "Mrs. Hebert, do you have anything to add as the mother of one of these 'Divines'?"

"Well, goddess or not, undercover or not, she's grounded for the next eleven months for joining a terrible villain gang." Jeffery chuckled politely at the joke but something in the inflection of her phrasing left him uneasy. "More seriously, Pandora directly resurrected me. I died in a car crash a little more than two years ago. Even if my daughter couldn't sense every neglected child and abused puppy on the planet, I would still be inclined to start saying grace. Either to thank Dinah directly or to thank God for sending her here and reuniting me with my family."

"That might be a somewhat controversial stance to take, considering the... let's call it the mixed results of her actions. What can you tell us about the Miseries?"

"The thing you need to understand about Dinah and thus the creation of the Miseries, is that she doesn't really plan anything she does. When Legend made his 'Not-wish', as Dinah calls it, he tripped over a part of her powers that neither of them had any inkling of. It directly traded one existential threat to humanity as a species with another. And unlike the Endbringers, Miseries can be fought, they can be killed. That's the purpose of the Hunter's guild. Theoretically, anyone can start small and kill their way up to fighting the most powerful monsters thanks to the 'level ups' you experience after fighting them. Realistically, training, support and information about known monsters are all needed to not die to the first surprise you run into."

"As head of a public safety service," Costa-Brown interjected, "I would like urge caution when dealing with anything that wants to cause you harm. While the Hunter's Guild does organize active extermination of hostile Miseries, if you are threatened directly by a monster, call 911. Depending on the severity of the situation, the police or the PRT are equipped to handle most Miseries. If a particularly dangerous Misery appears, please, evacuate the immediate area. Your local Hunter's Guild will set a bounty and a professional hunters will deal with the problem."

"So the Hunter's Guild will be a nation wide agency then?" Jeffery asked.

"In a sense. Guild houses are being set up all over the nation but there will be minimal centralized organization." Hebert stated. "Brockton Bay created an organization to deal with the problem first because we had such a great need for it. Between Leviathan's last attack, the Slaughterhouse 9 and that incident with the zombie penguins, the Bay became something of a hot spot of Misery activity. As such, we are being used as a sort of test bed for what will hopefully become standard procedures. Other Guild houses will be arranged for as needed by individual communities, the way police stations and firehouses are. We hope to create a nation wide network that provides training and shares information on Miseries as we learn it."

"That's definitely a relief to hear." And for once, Jeffery actually meant it. "We need to take a commercial break but we'll be right back with more in a moment. Stay tuned."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's where it stalled out. It was fun while it lasted but crack stories, even ones that dip a toe in the drama pool, are kinda tiring to write. If I ever come back to it, I'll try to remember to update here too.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Levi-tan disapproves of course language. Clearly, her's are pure and innocent ears and she must chastise the SI most sternly. Got the idea for this right before work and it percolated all night. I'll write the next chapter soon but for now I need to do laundry and go the fuck to sleep. I'll give it a once over when I wake but I would appreciate comments and corrections in the mean time.


End file.
